Politics The 2016 US Presidential Election

There was a pretty big anti-Bush voting block in 2008 for economic, war, and other reasons.

I'm not sure the anti-Obama voters will be out in force, but they are usually more reliable. The thing is that they were anti-Hillary voters prior to being anti-Obama...

 

I think the backlash has died out quite a bit.
Look how popular he has become, much higher than most presidents at this point in their second terms.
By standing up to the Republicans and effectively making them look like fools he has done a good job of raising his popularity.

The Clinton's have always done one thing right up until Hillary's run against Obama.
They always seemed to get the right person to run against.
Because no matter how many issues people might have had with either of them, who they were running against made much worse mistakes.

 

For me, it still comes back to the fact that no one with any reasonable chance of becoming president in the next election will be truly progressive, or even moderately liberal. At best, we can hope for a right-wing centrist like Hillary, at worst, we can expect a radical right-wing fundamentalist demagogue like Cruz or Huckabee or a right-wing agent of the corporate oligarchy like Jeb Bush or Chris Christie.

The true change in American national politics over the past 40 years has been the absolute pervasiveness of corporate corruption and bribery from ultra-rich kingmakers, in the guise of "campaign contributions" to PACs, SuperPACs, 527s, and so forth; the unchecked gerrymandering by partisan agencies to create districts permanently one party or another; and the vast shift of the entire political spectrum rightward, so that today's centrist Democrat is more or less a 1960 Nixon Republican, and the New Deal Democrats of 1940 are today's far-left fringe Democrats no one takes seriously anymore, while today's non-Teabagger Republicans are more or less the laissez-faire spoils-system Democrats of the 1880s, and Tea Party Republicans are the minority-suppressing, lynch-mob-making neo-Confederate Southern Democrats of the post-Civil War Reconstruction.

 

I don't think Cruz will be a major factor come election time. He's in a Rick Perry-esque position right now; he'll be there for the debates, he'll raise millions of dollars, but he'll be a bit much for the general election voters to stomach.

There are four factions of the conservative voter base that one needs to attempt to woo: The Establishment, The Religious Right, The Libertarians, and The Tea Party.

Cruz is a Tea Party guy, but the Establishment hates him (he's been voted most hated man in Congress by his fellow Congressmen), and The Libertarians are probably all-in with Rand Paul. Thus, the Liberty University choice for his speech; he's going to have to pander hard to the bible thumpers

 

And if you think he's bad you should read some of the stuff his dad says.

 

My largest concern with a person like Cruz is not that he will win the White House but rather he will end up as a running mate. If that ticket were to win we could see a Chenny like effect. Obviously that depends on the nominee.

 

Your analogies are cogent except for this one. In the 1880s, it was the Republicans who were really into the spoils-system and laissez-faire. Grover Cleveland, the one Democratic president of the late 19th century, brought about the Interstate Commerce Commission (the first attempt to regulate railroads), promoted a civil service law (the opposite of the spoils system), and ousted well-performing Republican officials only reluctantly, under great pressure from his party.

(We tend to think of the original Mayor Daley (D) and the Chicago machine as the epitome of the Spoils System, but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and many other cities were under the control of Republican political machines that worked exactly the same way.)

As I keep saying, we have these parties because we have this country. And compared to other leading industrial countries, we have a remarkably right-wing electorate.

This is nothing new, and hardly a "true change". Where do you think, say, William McKinley got his campaign money in 1896?

As the ultra-rich have gained a disproportionate share of national resources in recent years, they have more money to spend on politics. But that is largely an effect, rather than a cause, of the right-wing hold on politics and policy.

Arguably the gerrymandering (and especially the malapportionment) of the past was far more effective and insidious than anything going on today. Yeah, there is gerrymandering, and my state's congressional districts are a prime example, but even if the districts were drawn in a completely neutral fashion, Republicans are spread out much more efficiently for controlling more constituencies than Democrats, who tend to win urban areas overwhelmingly and lose everything else by narrow margins.

And that shift was not done single-handedly by some sinister fellow with billions to spend, or caused by the incompetence of some leftwing politician. It was the accumulation of many different choices by individuals, particularly, the decline of the American labor movement, primarily because millions of workers didn't see unions as relevant to their own lives.

 

I would agree that the US has become more right of center, particularly in the last 20 years. And I agree that the cause is not money (plenty spent on both sides). Nor is it the decline of the American labor movement.

I attribute more to the rise of extreme single issue interest groups and....talk radio! Both are dominated by the right.

And as a result, the impact has been most evident in Congress which has become much more partisan and much less willing to compromise and build consensus as Republicans in Congress are afraid to take on those single issue extremist groups and Limbaugh, et al for fear of being challenged on the right in primaries. Thus, the demise of Rockefeller/Nixon Republicans and the rise of the Tea Party.

Two widely respected Congressional historians (Thomas Mann on the left and Norm Ornstein on the right) wrote a book, The Broken Branch, about how Congress has become increasingly dysfunctional as a result.

They recently wrote an update, "It's Even Worse Than It Looks" concluding that "Republicans in their fanatical zeal to recapture Washington were primarily responsible for breaking the branch."

Given that the Republicans have benefited from the success of that "polarization," I dont see it getting better anytime soon.

 

I still maintain that they wouldn't be winning enough seats to get away with it, if the labor movement was still as big as it was 40 years ago.

 

Not completely, the efforts on certain groups parts to turn states into 'Right to Work' or as they really should be called 'Where the Boss has all the Rights' has done much to destroy the strength of the unions.
There has also been a concentrated effort to wipe out the those government unions as well.
You see how Walker and Christie have made their bones going after the teachers.
That's all about tearing down the unions.
The constant pounding about how bad education is in the US is almost consistently laid at the feet of the union.
If you track back where the buzz is coming from it's PACs and republican organizations.
They want to kill the teachers unions so bad they can taste it.

 

Nope, not confidence. It is simple. The other guy(s) votes for the idiots. Personally, I have never voted for an idiot in my life. Well I take that back, I actually did vote for Ross Perot in 1992 and he had this guy as his VP:

 

Stockdale got a bum rap. The campaign signed him up for the VP debate without telling him, until the day before. He was blindsided and unprepared.

That being said, I'm sure I have voted for many idiots, sometimes even deliberately.

I have been a registered voter for more than four decades in four different jurisdictions, and only missed voting once ever (a school board election when I was in grad school). I would guess I have showed up for about 100 different elections. Even-year general elections in Michigan have dozens of races, as do the primaries preceding them, and often there are quite a few ballot proposals. Cumulatively, I think I have cast at least a thousand votes.

 

why did hillary anounce it via social media?

 

The only part of this that I disagree with is your use of the word "or".

A moderate conservative could beat Hillary Clinton if they can avoid social issues, though it is doubtful that they can win the primary that way.

 

It is being reported that Clinton wants to raise $2.5 billion for her campaign. I do not doubt the number will eventually be matched on the Republican side. These numbers are getting to be absurdly high and appears to be increasingly inefficient. Each candidate may spend close to $40 per vote, voter turnout will be less than 60%. About 25% of voters are considered swing voters, meaning 75% are people who would not vote for the opposing party under any circumstance. That means that about $5 billion is potentially going to be spent on less than 32 million swing voters 0r about $160 per vote.

Is there anyone here who donates to Presidential campaigns? If so, why? In a pool of money measuring amounts in billions small donors individually make absolutely no difference - I suggest voting and donating money to a charity and make a real difference in the world. I will never donate money to a Presidential campaign. Actually, if TFP'ers want to give me $160 I would vote D because I calculate my vote won;t make that big of a difference and I would be more satisfied with the cash.