|
tsa posted:Al Gore. I don't think I agree with this. My recollection is Gore made a pretty concerted effort to take himself out of partisan politics generally and very specifically to avoid talking about Bush and is now an issue activist. I might just be forgetting a lot though from 2000-2004.
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 00:04
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:09 |
|
|
Chris Christie posted:Aside from Nixon, Reagan was a candidate multiple times. He never lost as the nominee, but I don't see what the big difference is in losing your 2nd run for the Presidency in the primary vs. in the general election. If anything, I would think Romney is more attractive. He made a lot of blunders on the campaign trail, and his G.O.V. operation imploded in hilarious fashion on election day. Despite that, he ran pretty well against THE political superstar of my generation at least. I wasn't around for Kennedy, so I can only go back a few decades, but Obama is without question the most charismatic Democratic candidate I've seen in my lifetime. Bill Clinton was good, but not on Obama's level in my opinion (although after the campaigns ended, he was infinitely more competent and a better POTUS). I think that he'll have a vague cloud of incompetence that will follow him as the result of 2012 no matter what he does. I have a lot of sympathy for the argument it may be entirely undeserved - I still maintain Kerry was a decent candidate and did well in a hard situation to no avail - but it's there. The last memory most of America has of him is post-2012 when everyone (friend and foe) tripped over themselves to discuss how incompetent his campaign was. Right or wrong, that's the image and I don't see how you make a serious run when that's everyone's gut feel about you.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 00:36
|
|
|
CubsWoo posted:The RNC wants 2016 to be 2014 redux in terms of strategy and everything I've heard says that Cruz and Paul will play ball. If either of them don't, or if Huckabee decides to make a go of it, they won't win nationally and will generally be ignored by the major Governors running. The general feeling is that the 2016 primary field is going to be much more moderate than 2008/2012. Since when does Cruz do anything that is not in Ted Cruz's personal interest? He's been positioning himself for the run by throwing various other Republicans under the bus so he can run against them, why is he going to stop now?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 02:19
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:The Democrats have never had a coherent economic agenda and never will. One advantage the GOP has on that front is that their plan is simple; remove regulations, lower taxes. It's simple and they can easily harp on "well yeah you'll take home more money and trickle-down economics will totally work this time, we swear." The Democrats absolutely have a coherent economic agenda. It's just not simplistic.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 02:32
|
|
|
Mitt Romney posted:I'm not too enthusiastic about a Hillary Clinton candidacy but like someone mentioned in a previous thread, if she ran a campaign on lowering the medicare age to 55 I think it would motivate the democratic base quite a bit, even if it would never get passed once she became president. Democrats, absolutely. Especially compared to promising it and then not delivering.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 04:22
|
|
|
CubsWoo posted:Cruz's support is a mile deep and an inch wide outside of Texas. Even this early in the cycle when only those who are deep into partisan politics are paying attention, Cruz is barely over 5%. He'll spend the next year+ being Cruz, build his war chest, lose both IA and NH (if he declares at all) and go back to his safe Senate seat. Oh I know he wont win, but he'll spend the entire time throwing bombs. Its his entire strategy for getting ahead.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 05:45
|
|
|
CubsWoo posted:The threat of a funded primary opponent in 2018/2024/etc and a pledge that he'll be denied chairmanships and plum committee appointments regardless of seniority whenever the GOP holds the majority in the Senate if he goes too far and puts the eventual candidate at risk. I don't buy it. All of these plans rely on managing to convince Cruz he can't win, and I don't see him accepting that. I'm sure they'll give it a shot but he didn't spend the last few years undermining GOP leadership to advance himself in the primaries to give up now.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 14:41
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:Do you suppose he might be making it as miserable for the other candidates as possible to try to squeak out a win in future elections? I feel like he just assumes he'll be president some day. If not this cycle then the next one. He's completely unelectable as far as the presidency goes but I feel like he has the whole "plucky, young underdog" thing going on in his head. I think that his strategy since getting elected has been to increase his stature by getting leadership stuck in impossible situations then attacking them for whatever solution they pick (for example shutting down the government over Obamacare, knowing full well it's not going to work and seeking only to be able to run as the guy who fought Obamacare while the other guy caved). His goal is to run a tea party campaign for the Presidency against the Republican establishment and he's been positioning himself for that for two years. I just don't see the bribe that he can be offered short of a guaranteed VP slot and/or the promise he will be the official nominee next time that gets him to avoid bomb-throwing. His path to the nomination is to make every other candidate unacceptable to the base. I don't see him caring enough about chairmanships to give up what he sees as his shot at the Presidency based on that. He definitely won't care about a primary challenge, he's not at all vulnerable to one. What are they going to do, run a candidate arguing to Texas Republicans that Ted Cruz was too conservative?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 17:28
|
|
|
CubsWoo posted:Compare the 2010/2012 crop of candidates to 2014. The RNC/etc learned from their mistakes and in nearly every winnable race they had someone who wasn't going to sink their own candidacy/the party in general by making a ridiculous gaffe or controversial statement (and as a result, I can't think of a statewide race where the Republican was favored going into election day and lost.) Cruz fell in line and went to Kansas to help Roberts after backing Milton Wolf in the primary. He's obviously in it for his own brand but he's also smart enough to understand that his realistic ceiling (especially in his mid-40s) is TX-GOV, VP candidate in either a very weak or very strong GOP year, or eight to nine term Senator if he lives that long. They were much more successful in Senate campaigns, yes. I am sure they'll do the same for 2016 Senate and try to do the same for 2016 Presidential primaries and that many candidates will fall in line. I'm sure they know they need to try to keep Cruz in line. I'm also sure that I know Cruz can't win the general - but I don't think that he can't win the primary. I think he believes he can win that and I do not believe he'll handicap himself and I don't think the RNC has a credible threat to keep him restrained. Cruz is not a party-first guy, he's a Cruz-first guy. He could have won a lot of friends in high places by smoothing over the shutdown fight but instead he threw gas on the fire to increase his popularity with the base - what leverage do they have now that they didn't have before? I mean obviously I am rooting for him to throw as many bombs as possible so I've got a bias, but I assume you also want him not doing that and have a similar bias 
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 20:33
|
|
|
AYC posted:http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/president/ There is no possibility of the Democrats retaking the House. They won the popular House vote in 2012 and it did virtually nothing. The map is gerrymandered specifically to blunt the demographic shift.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 21:32
|
|
|
AYC posted:I was thinking the Senate, especially when you consider the fact that the 2010 class of nutjobs is up for re-election. The Senate is doable, but tricky. There's another thread on it though: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3680204
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 21:52
|
|
|
Why doesn't someone start a thread for the network neutrality thing instead of having this here.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 12, 2014 23:19
|
|
|
Foyes36 posted:There's a good chance the state of Michigan will give its electoral votes to the winners of gerrymandered congressional distracts rather than the current winner-takes-all. That's not what that story says. It says that he wants to change it in an unspecified way he claims ensures the winner actually gets the majority of the votes, and also notes he tried to do it the district way you describe in 2011 but failed. It also doesn't actually suggest this is likely to go anywhere.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 13, 2014 19:01
|
|
|
KIM JONG TRILL posted:That's kind of shocking. The Republican Party has had (delusions) of making Michigan competitive in a presidential race. If they split the votes, the state is meaningless (why campaign for a handful of EV's at the max) while if they remain winner-take-all he can try to make Michigan actually relevant. That means he gets to be a valued surrogate when the 2016 guy campaigns there which is good for him personally.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 13, 2014 21:58
|
|
|
Alter Ego posted:I see either hide or hair of Penn, Howard Wolfson, or that puling little racist poo poo Lanny Davis, and I will find the nearest third-party candidate. Reminder: primaries. Try to get an alternative candidate nominated in the first place
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2014 20:42
|
|
|
AYC posted:Goddammit. Someone you like in the Democratic primary. You can worry about the general after that.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2014 19:28
|
|
|
AYC posted:So Bernie Sanders? Yeah, or Kucinich, or the like. Primaries matter and forcing the mainstream candidate to tack towards you (even if they'll tack back afterwards to some degree) has real value. If you're unhappy with the Democratic party you should definitely vote in its primaries, even if you won't then vote for the winner in the general if you don't like them.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2014 19:32
|
|
|
pathetic little tramp posted:Right here is the truest poo poo because literally in the United States, 5 or so states control the narrative entirely every four years. To be elected president of the entire country you first have to be elected leader of the party by some of the most irrelevant and full-of-idiot states in the nation. At least if it were California or Texas, it'd be representative. Didn't one of the states try to move their primary up so they would have more of a say and that led to them getting blackballed or something? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2014 20:35
|
|
|
pathetic little tramp posted:Exactly. I mean, what's even the reasoning of these four? Nevada is a hellhole hemorrhaging jobs because it turns out gambling isn't a sustainable economy when other states legalise it, South Carolina is South Carolina, Iowa at least has some agricultural leanings, and New Hampshire is see previous post. Nevada has a large latino population, South Carolina has a large black population. Helps counteract that Iowa and New Hampshire are like 99% white.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2014 20:41
|
|
|
pathetic little tramp posted:Okay that makes sense - we do want small states to open the playing field, but why not at least switch it up every four years? This time is Iowa,NH,Nevada,SC. Next time we get Nebraska,WV,Oregon,Louisiana. Wouldn't that make more sense long term? Iowa and NH refuse to give up their spot and you can't really make them.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2014 22:59
|
|
|
Eregos posted:A hypothetical 2016 map, with swing states in gray. (I was liberal in my definition of 'swing state' since we are pretty far out). The midwest is clearly the name of the game for Republicans - they've got to make major inroads there to have a real shot at winning the white house. In case anyone's curious (I was) this map gives Democrats 186 'safe' EVs and Republicans 125. That's a fairly sizable gap. If you give Republicans Kentucky, Arkansas and Montana (which I think are all pretty safely Republican) you still only get 186-142.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2014 18:58
|
|
|
WhiskeyJuvenile posted:If the Republicans can't win Virginia in a 6th year midterm wave, is it a swing state? That map defines swing state pretty liberally as essentially any state that either party could have a hope of contesting that is not completely insane. Many states on there aren't swing states except in fever dreams of one party.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2014 20:23
|
|
|
At what point did it really become clear Obama was running in 2008? I keep feeling like if there was going to be a Hillary challenger I'd sort of know who they were by now, but I realized that don't actually have any real basis for that belief because I apparently have the memory of a goldfish and can't remember the leadup to the primaries in 2008 well enough.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 14:48
|
|
|
The Warszawa posted:Springfield was the official announcement but it was really cemented in December. Hillary actually declared later than Obama as I remember it. Yeah but it's the unofficial declarations of intent that I'm most interested in. I just don't see anyone who can beat Hillary - granted, many people didn't think Obama could either but he was at least credible. I don't see the credible challengers here. I could see Warren playing that sort of role (though I don't think she'd be successful) but I've seen no indication she is actually interested in running. I don't see anyone else - Webb is really the only other 'serious' candidate and nobody's going to win the Democratic nomination attacking Hillary from the right.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 17:38
|
|
|
Joementum posted:There's also the possibility that Webb doesn't run as a Democrat. Yeah, he wouldn't win but he sure could throw a wrench into things. That's definitely something to keep an eye on.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 17:44
|
|
|
The Warszawa posted:I'm not sure he would actually wrench things - he'd basically be a straw bogeyman with dumb opinions on race that Clinton could beat on to shore up her credentials with the actual Democratic base while not actually shifting any policy stances. I mean as an independent. He's just get thrashed in the primary, but an independent candidate like Webb runs the risk of peeling off enough Democratic support in states like Virginia or Ohio to throw the general.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 17:51
|
|
|
The Warszawa posted:Eh, I'm still not sure - Webb's demographic may be registered as Democrats but are they expected to vote Democratic at the national level? I think there's a lot of "moderates" who aren't really all that liberal, but got turned off by the incompetence of the Bush years. After the horror of the Kenyan Usurper I don't think many Republicans are going to be willing to abandon their guy for a third-party candidate who won't win, but given Obama's approval ratings there's clearly a chunk of people who voted for him but are somewhat unhappy with him and would be a target for someone like Webb. But you do have a good point that if he has crossover appeal it may be premature to assume he'd draw mostly from voters who would otherwise break D.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 18:02
|
|
|
Fried Chicken posted:Webb attacking on foreign policy/anti war would be coming from the left. He can attack on the left on those issues but his politics are solidly to Hillary's right and his base of support would be the right, not the left.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 18:06
|
|
|
amanasleep posted:If Hillary is nominated and loses in 2016 then Kirsten Gillibrand is a mortal lock to be the nominee in 2020. There's basically no such thing as a mortal lock for a midterm election. Candidates who are so strong to be a mortal lock want to wait four years when there's no incumbent rather than waste their shot on what will likely be a failure.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 19:39
|
|
|
g0del posted:The obvious thing to do is to have the convention one week before the general election. Put that transient bounce to real use. They probably would, except that campaign finance rules mean you might run out of money because you can only spend primary money until the convention.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 18:35
|
|
|
richardfun posted:If the Clintons are going to keep holding a grudge against anyone who backed Obama in '08, that's going to be a mighty long shitlist. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot. You're thinking about it wrong. The VP spot is incredibly valuable: you get national exposure and a massive boost to your own planned Presidential run. There's no way that the Clintons would give such a valuable spot to anyone who hasn't 'earned it' through their support for Hillary unless there was some massive need for someone else. The Clintons have held a great deal of power by having a "best possible friend, worst possible enemy" approach to loyalty. In a presidential race they can't afford to be vindictive - but they can reserve the greatest rewards for their most loyal friends. If it's time to pick and Clinton is in a hard-fought race and worried then sure, she'll look outside the collection of loyalists if there's someone who can give her what she views as a much-needed boost. But if she's in a spot like Obama in 2008 where she doesn't view the VP pick as something that needs to pay political dividends to get over the finish line, it's going to a loyalist. Fulchrum posted:Which was being served when Bill Clinton gave the speech of 2012 in favor of Barack Obama? That was a quid pro quo: Obama agreed to support Hillary in 2016 (he later got out of this in exchange for that horrible joint press conference when she quit). I think in 2010, it was noted that Clinton made tons of appearances at events for the people who supported Hillary and not a single appearance at someone's events who didn't.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2014 20:13
|
|
|
Our data set of elections is so small to make drawing trends out of it virtually useless. You can only get even a moderately sized sample by going back so far the data has no relationship to what is occurring today.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2014 23:46
|
|
|
computer parts posted:It only happened once for Republicans too. Bush I, Nixon. That's off the top of my head, there may be more. edit: Also whatever you think about 2000, Gore clearly had a better shot at getting the Presidency because he was the VP than otherwise.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2014 23:48
|
|
|
computer parts posted:Those are the only two and Nixon doesn't really count as he was MIA for 8 years. I disagree - he wasn't MIA, he lost to JFK then came back and won when he got his second shot. More to the point a quick count of the past VPs says that 14 of them later became President. That's not bad odds - considerably better than any other position I can think of.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2014 23:53
|
|
|
Nameless_Steve posted:Real endorsements, already? Has Clinton even formed an exploratory committee yet? ...no it doesn't, getting endorsements locked down means that person has a much harder time jumping to the other side than if they'd never endorsed at the beginning. What on earth would make you think it's bad to rack up early endorsements?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2014 23:45
|
|
|
Raskolnikov38 posted:Also he has the added advantage of it being true when he says "I was not part of my brother's administration." He's refused to badmouth his brother's presidency and that would be a significant liability in distancing himself from that trainwreck.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2014 16:42
|
|
|
comes along bort posted:Dukakis got more of the white vote than Obama last time. Like I said, the floor's been set, and I seriously doubt Hillary will pull in Mondale numbers among whitey, and that's what it's gonna take at minimum for a Republican to win the presidency. The issue with talking about the 'white' vote is that it's not really monolithic. There's whites in the South, who vote Republican overwhelmingly, then there's whites everywhere else who are reasonably friendly to the Democrats. The Democrats can afford the Republicans running up the cracker vote in the South, it's the vote in the rest of the country that matters.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2014 16:45
|
|
|
ufarn posted:Can someone explain to me the so-called blunder of Christie attending last night's football game? The Cowboys are a rival of the New York Giants, which despite the name is a New Jersey team and won't be loved at home.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2015 14:51
|
|
|
TheBalor posted:Wasn't part of the problem that Christie refused to open up to full scrutiny? That's pretty much an admission that there are some ugly things hiding in your past. Romney's advisors have said that they turned up enough on him to have destroyed him in the primary. That means they actually found the ugly things, and they didn't spend anything close to what will get spent if he's an actual candidate.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2015 00:43
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:09 |
|
|
GhostofJohnMuir posted:If Christie has such huge, obvious weaknesses, why is he considering running? Is it misplaced confidence or maybe the belief that even if he loses his career comes out ahead? He may disagree about how bad the skeletons are or not realize they're there, or just figure that anything that damaging would have leaked already.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2015 00:57
|
|