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Tatum Girlparts posted:Seriously we can't keep making fun of people not knowing what the president does when they say Obama is an evil puppetmaster communist and then go on to act like the president's views mean anything if the rest of the lawmaking structure doesn't agree with her. Even if you vote Sanders for president if the congress is controlled by republicans and right wing democrats what's going to happen if you expect him to be a diehard, uncompromising, socialist? That comic is funny but pretty much wrong. The President is commander of an army that is several times as powerful as every other fighting force in the world combined, and head of a set of agencies that wield enormous power and influence in accordance with direction and priorities handed down by him and his cabinet. He's not just some guy who gets trotted out for press conferences, he's probably the single most influential and powerful person on the planet and has literally millions of people at his beck and call.
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Apr 26, 2014 19:39
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Paul MaudDib posted:That comic is funny but pretty much wrong. The President is commander of an army that is several times as powerful as every other fighting force in the world combined, and head of a set of agencies that wield enormous power and influence in accordance with direction and priorities handed down by him and his cabinet. He's not just some guy who gets trotted out for press conferences, he's probably the single most influential and powerful person on the planet and has literally millions of people at his beck and call. Unless you're proposing that the President use the military to bully Congress that has nothing to do with his influence with them.
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Apr 26, 2014 19:53
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Paul MaudDib posted:That comic is funny but pretty much wrong. The President is commander of an army that is several times as powerful as every other fighting force in the world combined, and head of a set of agencies that wield enormous power and influence in accordance with direction and priorities handed down by him and his cabinet. He's not just some guy who gets trotted out for press conferences, he's probably the single most influential and powerful person on the planet and has literally millions of people at his beck and call. Did you mean to quote me? Like yea I'm not saying he has zero power but I don't see what his power over the military has to do with the fact that in the balance of power for lawmaking he has no real ability to create laws, only to validate them.
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Apr 26, 2014 19:58
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computer parts posted:Unless you're proposing that the President use the military to bully Congress that has nothing to do with his influence with them. Of course not, no need to be absurd. But I'm sure you remember who did the negotiating during the Debt Ceiling. If not, let me refresh your memory: it was the de-facto leader of the Democratic party, the leader of the civilizing forces, head of the executive branch, Barack H. Obama. The executive branch wields an incredible amount of influence both domestically (as defacto head of their political party, and through direct influence as projected by the regulatory/management agencies and law enforcement) and internationally (as projected by the diplomatic apparatus directly controlled by the President as well as the most powerful fighting force in the history of the world), and it's disgusting to see people making the argument that the President really doesn't have much power anyway. To turn your question around, didn't the President bully Congress into invading Iraq? The President had a solid policy concept of what he wanted, one that Congress didn't share. The wheels were set into motion: speculative intelligence began to float upwards, pessimistic intelligence stopped floating upwards. The president has an enormous amount of this kind of soft power. All kinds of other poo poo falls under the Executive regulatory penumbra and doesn't even need the Congressional arm-twisting: who the SEC prosecutes, what laws are selected as priorities for our police to enforce, whether the DEQ accepts Gulf drilling proposals that include contingency plans for saving polar bears, whether the head of FEMA is a college drinking buddy, what drugs are scheduled, and so on. Clinton's policy views in such areas are absolutely relevant, as is her hawkish past. I'm less concerned about the "hawk" thing personally. She did just fine as Secretary of State, although that was admittedly under the policy direction of another President. I don't really think she's actually worse than Obama, she just has the vote to invade Iraq around her neck plus was politically active at a time before drones made forever-war totally invisible to the general public. The Clintons do have a reputation for being really neo-liberal pro-business types (just like Obama in practice) and that's more worrying because the President has a huge amount of influence on the agenda for their party. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 20:04
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Paul MaudDib posted:
Uhhh...there's a pretty big difference between convincing a Congress held by your party to do something and convincing a Congress who you share no allegiances with to do something.
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Apr 26, 2014 20:20
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computer parts posted:Uhhh...there's a pretty big difference between convincing a Congress held by your party to do something and convincing a Congress who you share no allegiances with to do something. Gee, so what do you think held back the Democrats when they had control of both houses, if party is such a great proxy for holding similar views?  Supermajority levels of both parties voted for the Iraq War resolution, in both chambers. That's not exactly the party-line vote you want it to be, but it's still really funny to see Democrats trotting out the significance of controlling Congress after spending four years running away from it, even if it's incorrect in fact. Still though, don't you think maybe Congress might already have neo-liberal proclivities and would gladly go along with even more generic pro-corporatism stuff if the President set that direction? Especially a president who has had that kind of reputation since long before our current neoliberal president? Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 20:27
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Paul MaudDib posted:Gee, so what do you think held back the Democrats when they had control of both houses, if party is such a great proxy for holding similar views? Held them back from what? No one is saying Democrats are leftists. What is being said is that even if a leftist somehow got to the presidency there's not much they could do without a friendly Congress. quote:Supermajority levels of both parties voted for the Iraq War resolution, in both chambers. That's not exactly the party-line vote you want it to be, but it's still really funny to see Democrats trotting out the significance of controlling Congress after spending four years running away from it, even if it's incorrect in fact. There was precedence for invading Iraq due to the whole 9/11 thing, I don't know if you've heard of it. Paul MaudDib posted:Still though, don't you think maybe Congress might already have neo-liberal proclivities and would gladly go along with even more generic pro-corporatism stuff if the President set that direction? Especially a president who has had that kind of reputation since long before our current neoliberal president? Jesus Christ what are you talking about? The entire point is that Congress does not have leftist proclivities and so having a leftist president wouldn't force them in that direction.
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Apr 26, 2014 20:31
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computer parts posted:There was precedence for invading Iraq due to the whole 9/11 thing, I don't know if you've heard of it. No, there wasn't. The ties between Iraq and 9/11 were entirely invented. The President had been gunning to finish Daddy's work since literally day 1 of his administration (George Washington University has a nice timeline from National Security Archive sources) and it's widely agreed that ties between Iraq and 9/11 were fabricated by the administration to support that agenda. You're supporting incredible levels of conspiracy theory here, I expect next you're going to tell me about the ships full of chemical weapons that slipped through just before we invaded. The President is and always has been able to influence Congress to a fairly large degree (via party agenda, as de-facto head of party) and the runup to the Iraq war is a classic example. No one's thought after 9/11 was "let's invade Iraq" except GWB's, it was not even on the radar until the President and his cabinet agitated for it. computer parts posted:Held them back from what? So because we can't get all of Bernie Sanders' agenda passed, we should just elect a neoliberal president then? Is this like an accelerationist thing or what? And my point was that even if a leftist president faced a hostile Congress they still wield an enormous amount of power through their control of Executive agencies. Congress writes the laws, but the agencies then interpret those laws themselves. An awful lot of government policy is set by how vigorously those various agencies and laws are used. I listed a bunch of practical things above that the President controls regardless of Congress. vvv Really, now we're talking about influence with the public? Sure seems like we've been talking about Congressional influence, among other powers wielded by the President. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 20:35
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Paul MaudDib posted:No, there wasn't. The ties between Iraq and 9/11 were entirely invented. The President had been gunning to finish Daddy's work since literally day 1 of his administration (George Washington University has a nice timeline from National Security Archive sources) and it's widely agreed that ties between Iraq and 9/11 were fabricated by the administration to support that agenda. You're supporting incredible levels of conspiracy theory here, I expect next you're going to tell me about the ships full of chemical weapons that slipped through just before we invaded. There was precedence in the public eye, I already knew all of that. By the way: good job completely ignoring the rest of my post because it shows how obtuse you are.
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Apr 26, 2014 20:36
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Is a vote to invade Iraq really going to hang around Hillary's neck, though? No one's going to seriously attack her from the left using that, and for the GOP to bring it up they'd have to acknowledge that the Bush years happened at all.
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Apr 27, 2014 01:14
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Full Battle Rattle posted:Hillary's ability to win concerns me. I agree. Wait, you mean that she would have trouble winning? 
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Apr 27, 2014 01:45
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Secondly, given the opposition field looks to be, if anything, even more populated by lunatics, nobodies, and also-rans than in 2012, I have a hard time coming up with a GOP candidate that would give her serious trouble (not that I don't expect the sexist dog-whistle and outright misogyny to get cranked up to 11, of course). Perry and Bush are entirely plausible candidates. Perry crashed and burned hilariously last time but if he brings his A game and people are mad enough at Obama about whatever it's not a foregone conclusion that he wouldn't be a contender. Bush is a competent center-right politician who is making clear overtures to the Latino vote that almost the entire rest of the Republican field are going to spend the entire primary season trying to one up each other's zingers about. For the last two presidential elections far right Republicans have gobbled up huge amounts of airtime pulling the race to the right and the media had given them a lot of attention only for the "silent majority" to vote in favor of the most moderate and well established Republican candidate in the primary. I fully expect those same people to decide that Dubya wasn't all that bad "compared to Obama" and be very happy to give his older brother a go at it.
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Apr 27, 2014 01:45
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Is Sanders going to be able to primary with the Dems? e:V Please no oh god no. Miltank fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Apr 27, 2014 |
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Apr 27, 2014 01:51
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SavageBastard posted:Perry and Bush are entirely plausible candidates. Perry crashed and burned hilariously last time but if he brings his A game and people are mad enough at Obama about whatever it's not a foregone conclusion that he wouldn't be a contender. Bush is a competent center-right politician who is making clear overtures to the Latino vote that almost the entire rest of the Republican field are going to spend the entire primary season trying to one up each other's zingers about. For the last two presidential elections far right Republicans have gobbled up huge amounts of airtime pulling the race to the right and the media had given them a lot of attention only for the "silent majority" to vote in favor of the most moderate and well established Republican candidate in the primary. I fully expect those same people to decide that Dubya wasn't all that bad "compared to Obama" and be very happy to give his older brother a go at it. It'll be Jeb v. Hillary in 2016.  The great battle of our time. Dystram fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Apr 27, 2014 |
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Apr 27, 2014 01:57
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SavageBastard posted:Perry and Bush are entirely plausible candidates. Perry crashed and burned hilariously last time but if he brings his A game and people are mad enough at Obama about whatever it's not a foregone conclusion that he wouldn't be a contender. Bush is a competent center-right politician who is making clear overtures to the Latino vote that almost the entire rest of the Republican field are going to spend the entire primary season trying to one up each other's zingers about. For the last two presidential elections far right Republicans have gobbled up huge amounts of airtime pulling the race to the right and the media had given them a lot of attention only for the "silent majority" to vote in favor of the most moderate and well established Republican candidate in the primary. I fully expect those same people to decide that Dubya wasn't all that bad "compared to Obama" and be very happy to give his older brother a go at it. Perry has no chance. He's just not smart. Christie and Bush are plausible.
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Apr 27, 2014 02:01
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Dystram posted:It'll be Jeb v. Hillary in 2016. I do not endorse this, but I think Jeb is a strong contender, and it should be noted that Jeb and Hillary already do education initiative events together.
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Apr 27, 2014 02:15
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Wolfsheim posted:Is a vote to invade Iraq really going to hang around Hillary's neck, though? No one's going to seriously attack her from the left using that Schweitzer already has a couple of times this year.
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Apr 27, 2014 02:15
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Miltank posted:Is Sanders going to be able to primary with the Dems? It's entirely up to him and in his interview in The Nation he indicated that he's considering doing that.
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Apr 27, 2014 02:17
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Schweitzer/Locke 2016! Imagine that combo. An Arabic speaking, gun toting Western Governor with his own dog and pickup truck running with a Chinese-American, Pacific Northwestern Governor and former Ambassador who speaks Mandarin (?) and is hated by the Chinese government for criticizing them.
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Apr 27, 2014 02:24
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amanasleep posted:I do not endorse this, but I think Jeb is a strong contender, and it should be noted that Jeb and Hillary already do education initiative events together. "In her keynote address, Clinton praised Bush's dedication to education reform since serving two terms as governor of Florida, where he overhauled the state's education system, introducing a school voucher program and banning using race as a factor in university admissions." http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/24/jeb-bush-hillary-clinton-together-again-to-talk-education/ 
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Apr 27, 2014 02:26
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Dystram posted:"In her keynote address, Clinton praised Bush's dedication to education reform since serving two terms as governor of Florida, where he overhauled the state's education system, introducing a school voucher program and banning using race as a factor in university admissions." http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/24/jeb-bush-hillary-clinton-together-again-to-talk-education/ The collegial politics that we claim to miss looks exactly like that.
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Apr 27, 2014 02:28
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SavageBastard posted:The collegial politics that we claim to miss looks exactly like that. You can be collegial and not praise policy that's actually bad. Also, I don't really miss collegial politics; it's usually just fake pleasantry anyway.
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Apr 27, 2014 02:55
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Dystram posted:You can be collegial and not praise policy that's actually bad. I'm going to go ahead and guess that her broadly complementary statements did not include phrases that praised his move towards eliminating race weighted admissions.
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Apr 27, 2014 03:01
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SavageBastard posted:I'm going to go ahead and guess that her broadly complementary statements did not include phrases that praised his move towards eliminating race weighted admissions. Probably not.
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Apr 27, 2014 03:04
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Joementum posted:Schweitzer already has a couple of times this year. I guess by 'seriously' I meant 'effectively.' I don't think people care that much? It's like drone strikes; the group that is actually concerned about them is entirely marginalized, and other than that you're just getting Rand Paul pretending he cares long enough to attack Obama about it.
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Apr 27, 2014 03:07
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Dystram posted:Probably not. Well I didn't hear the speech so I'll yield to your confidence in what you assume she said. Wolfsheim posted:I guess by 'seriously' I meant 'effectively.' I don't think people care that much? It's like drone strikes; the group that is actually concerned about them is entirely marginalized, and other than that you're just getting Rand Paul pretending he cares long enough to attack Obama about it. It's tough because there's no good alternative Most Americans agree that we should be doing "something" about these guys because what we were doing before 9/11 was pretty clearly a bad idea and a lot of what we did after 9/11 was a pretty bad idea but without a good alternative the criticism sounds like "hoping things turn out ok." SavageBastard fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Apr 27, 2014 |
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Apr 27, 2014 03:14
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SavageBastard posted:Well I didn't hear the speech so I'll yield to your confidence in what you assume she said. “I want to thank Jeb Bush, someone else who really focused on education during his time as governor,” Clinton said. “And who has continued hat work with passion and dedication in the years since.” Definitely a thorough endorsement of all of his policies, for sure. 
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Apr 27, 2014 07:26
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dilbertschalter posted:“I want to thank Jeb Bush, someone else who really focused on education during his time as governor,” Clinton said. “And who has continued hat work with passion and dedication in the years since.” "I want to thank Rick Santorum, someone else who really focused on gay rights during his time as senator" Clinton said. "I want to thank Ron Paul, someone else who really focused on the economy during his time in congress" Clinton said.
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Apr 27, 2014 11:08
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So Warren has been making the rounds on morning shows and if she herself isn't there there's been a segment on 'wow isn't she so great, aren't we bummed we have to settle for Clinton?' So it's pretty obviously gonna be Clinton/Warren '16?
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Apr 27, 2014 16:29
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Apparently Bob Schieffer says he has a source that says  may run if Jeb doesn't. I'm pumped.
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Apr 27, 2014 16:31
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SAVE_US.CHR
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ChampRamp posted:Apparently Bob Schieffer says he has a source that says Running a third time reeks of desperation. I don't see it.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:16
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ChampRamp posted:Apparently Bob Schieffer says he has a source that says Mitt Romney: the less charismatic, less successful Adlai Stevenson.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:21
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ReidRansom posted:Running a third time reeks of desperation. I don't see it. Romney wants to be president. He's rich as all hell, and he seems like a very legacy focused person. I don't think he's happy with being a footnote in history. If he has the opportunity, he's gonna take it IMO
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Apr 27, 2014 17:22
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LOU BEGAS MUSTACHE posted:Romney wants to be president. He's rich as all hell, and he seems like a very legacy focused person. I don't think he's happy with being a footnote in history. But it's not really up to him. I don't see voters tolerating a twice loser coming back for more.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:36
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LOU BEGAS MUSTACHE posted:Romney wants to be president. His wife wants him to be president but I don't know about him. Especially literally the election right after the one he lost.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:36
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computer parts posted:His wife wants him to be president but I don't know about him. Especially literally the election right after the one he lost. From what I remember from one of the 2012 post-mortem accounts, she was much more of a driving force in his initial decision to run than he was, as was at least one of their sons.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:47
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It would not be as unusual as one would think for Romney to run again. Plenty of politicians have run for the party nomination again after losing in the general election: Dewey, Stevenson, Nixon, Humphrey, McGovern. Heck, three of those men actually ended up winning the nomination and one of them won the presidency. Granted, it's been thirty years since this has happened.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:48
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computer parts posted:His wife wants him to be president but I don't know about him. Especially literally the election right after the one he lost. I get the feeling that he just really, really hates campaigning. If the guy was just appointed to be President I'd think he be alright with taking the job.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:53
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Raskolnikov38 posted:I get the feeling that he just really, really hates campaigning. If the guy was just appointed to be President I'd think he be alright with taking the job. This sounds about right, and meshes with his reluctant "geez, just give me the presidency surely you peons all realize I deserve it" style of campaigning.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:55
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Raskolnikov38 posted:I get the feeling that he just really, really hates campaigning. If the guy was just appointed to be President I'd think he be alright with taking the job. He probably hates that there is a process that involves rubbing elbows with all the unwashed peasants and can't believe that it's not just the
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Apr 27, 2014 18:13
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