US and NA Politics (General)

[tannhauser42]

Cornyn's seat is up in 2020, so Beto can still run for that. Whether or not Cornyn is as... inspiring...to Texas Republicans as Cruz was, I don't know. Cornyn is just kind of "there" compared to Cruz, mainly because he's not the master class attention whore Cruz is.

[hatoflords]

JFK and LBJ aren't my favorite presidents. They're hardly the worst around but I don't think either of them achieved as much as they could have, not accounting for one of them being gunned down that is.

Nov 20, 2018 10:41:56 GMT -5 tannhauser42 said:

Cornyn's seat is up in 2020, so Beto can still run for that. Whether or not Cornyn is as... inspiring...to Texas Republicans as Cruz was, I don't know. Cornyn is just kind of "there" compared to Cruz, mainly because he's not the master class attention whore Cruz is.

I think that's a big part of why Cruz was as vulnerable as he was honestly. The man has no political backbone, no ideals, and no integrity. He's a political worm, there to soak up the attention and the spotlight but having no apparent interest in actually doing anything with any of it other than perpetuate himself. Cornyn is just there, but by that extension he's more insulated. Maybe O'Rouke could unseat him (I'm more than happy to watch him try), but I don't think it's clear how much of the close 2018 race was "Cruz sucks" and how much was "O'Rouke rocks." That O'Rouke got as far as he did on a platform as liberal as his is super impressive in Texas but he won't necessarily do any better in 2 years against Cornyn than he did against Cruz.

[Deleted]

Beto with Biden as VP would be I guess sort of sellable. Still, Beto seems to be all hat and no cattle to me. 

I do feel like we really should be able to do better. As much as I like Biden he's pretty old. He was a good VP, he didn't take his shot, and now it's too late. Sorry, but it is what it is. 

I like Warren, but I don't think she can win.

I don't really like Cory Booker for reasons I find difficult to articulate well. He just comes off as super, super phoney to me. I mean, what politician really is authentic, right? But I don't think he sells it well. 

I guess I'm in the Kamala Harris camp. She doesn't have a much more meaty record then Beto, but I am a good match with her policy positions, and statistically senators are a hell of a lot better at getting elected to the presidency than congressmen. 

[hatoflords]

The Democratic field simply isn't very strong right now. I think Biden could win, but it really depends on how well he reels in his worst habits and capitalizes on his 2016 stardom. His popularity really rocked up in that last year for being... swell I guess?

The rest all suck though. I mean some of them are decent enough in the House or Senate, but yeah. I don't think Warren could win. Or Booker. Or Harris. It's the biggest weakness in 2020 for the party I think. There's just no good candidates, and I have a bad feeling Bernie is going to take another stab at it which annoys me the most. He went a bit beyond just trying to raise some issues to national attention (which he succeeded at), and became a spoiler candidate imo which is a marvel for someone to do in a primary. If he does it again in 2020 he could doom anyone trying to get through the process unless it's him and I see Bernie as another brand of crazy. I don't want him to run. The only choice worse than Crazy v Unlikeable Sanity is Crazy v Crazy.

[Deleted]

Nov 20, 2018 11:04:42 GMT -5 hatoflords said:

JFK and LBJ aren't my favorite presidents. They're hardly the worst around but I don't think either of them achieved as much as they could have, not accounting for one of them being gunned down that is.

I think JFK is in the running for the worst modern presidents, honestly. I don't know why the guy is so lionized.  He brought us to the precipice of nuclear war over Cuba, escalated the Vietnam war, and let Hoover run wild domestically. 

I also hope Bernie stays away, but I doubt he will. I don't think his ego will allow him to. 

My hope is that he simply fails to get any traction, much as with happened with Ralph Nader in 2004. 

[CommieCanUCK]

Wasn't Bama basically a political nobody until that dem primary? If Beto (or Harris or Booker, etc.) can demonstrate their charisma and leadership, and surround themselves with competent advisors, then the dems should be fine in 2020. Two more years of uncontained Trumpster fires won't hurt , either.

[Deleted]

So it seems like Trump will keep on being okay with SA killing a US resident, cutting him up, and soaking him in acid because they are assholes that are on our side.

[hatoflords]

Nov 20, 2018 12:57:12 GMT -5 CommieCanUCK said:

Wasn't Bama basically a political nobody until that dem primary? If Beto (or Harris or Booker, etc.) can demonstrate their charisma and leadership, and surround themselves with competent advisors, then the dems should be fine in 2020. Two more years of uncontained Trumpster fires won't hurt , either.

He first got national attention during a speech at the DNC in 2004, and while he was hardly a house hold name then, he'd been an Illinois State Senator for nearly a decade. It's a much more high profile gig honestly than the US House of Representatives where O'Rouke has only been active for about five years, with City council experience behind that in El Paso for about six years. On top of that Obama prepared for four years to run for President, after winning a Federal Senate seat.

If O'Rouke actually beat Cruz, I'd be saying "run for President" as much as anyone else because even if I think he's inexperienced that's one hell of a moment shifter, but he didn't win. I think going from a loss to running for WH in 2020 is a bad call for his future.

Don't get me wrong. I kind of like O'Rouke. He feels authentic, and he's got enthusiasm. He also has a real record of bipartisanship which is hard to find in Presidential candidates these days (the most loud mouthed and offensive members of the parties tend to get the most air time). I think he might make a good President, some day. I just doubt that day will be 2020 and I don't want him to screw his own pooch.

[Deleted]

If he’s on a ticket it should probably be a VP spot.

[CommieCanUCK]

I'm saying that, unless HRC noms herself again, pretty much anyone should be able to beat Trump in 2020. The only reason HRC lost in the first place was a concerted 25 year character assassination campaign.

[hatoflords]

Yeah. I hadn't given that much thought but putting O'Rouke as VP could be a good idea... for his running mate. The issue is that aspiring politicians tend to dislike 2 roles in Federal Government: Speaker of the House and Vice President.

While it wasn't always true of the latter, both positions now are seen as political dead ends by many. George H.W. Bush was the last VP to become P, and of the 12 (?) VPs who became P in US history most of them succeeded the president to office first! Johnson, Truman, LBJ, and Ford all became President because of the death or resignation of their predecessor and then ran.

If O'Rouke really wants to be president he might turn the position down just because the track record on electing VPs is really spotty unless his running mate kicks the bucket/resigns and who wants to bet their political future on that?

Nov 20, 2018 13:48:03 GMT -5 CommieCanUCK said:

I'm saying that, unless HRC noms herself again, pretty much anyone should be able to beat Trump in 2020. The only reason HRC lost in the first place was a concerted 25 year character assassination campaign.

The honest problem is finding a candidate who isn't in a similar boat. All the potential Democratic nominees save a few have long political careers which has become an increasingly liability in Presidential runs. Lots of room to be attacked, and the Republicans in particular are quite happy to attack ahead of time lately.

[CommieCanUCK]

Sanders/O'Rouke 2020!

[Deleted]

Nov 20, 2018 0:09:59 GMT -5 Emblematic Wolfblade said:

Great, and the investigations say no wrong doing was committed.

No... the investigations did NOT say "no wrong doing".

Furthermore, congressional committees only investigate... they don't prosecute. That's under the pervue of DOJ...which... guess who ran that department during the 2016 election?

Again, the point of my "lock her up!" wasn't to scream until she was locked up, but to make fun of the republican's hypocrisy. You're more than happy to bang on and on and on about Hillary, but you're dead silent about Kushner and Ivanka.

-There was never an email server in Ivanka's house.
-Classified information was never created/sent as there's no evidence. If there are, then yes she should be prosecuted
-Prior to fixing her emailing practices, she still sent emails to proper accounts per government regulations
-She also didn't delete any SUBPOENAED emails without any oversight
-Nor did she order a bleaching (Bleach Bit) of any personal harddrives to obstruct any future investigations
-Nor did she smash phones used for government communications to pieces to obstruct any future investigations
-Nor did she repeated LIE at every step of the way (remember, it was drip, drip, drip that exposed her lies)
-The takes are tendentious and lazy
-What Clinton did was orders of magnitude worst than what Ivanka did in 2017.
-This was a repeat of an old 2017 story. So... why repeating it again?

So, why did the WashPo repeat the old story? Is it to:
a) Defray it some more in the hopes that HRC tries to run for POTUS again? I really, really doubt it.

OR

b) There's an ongoing civil FOIA case where the judge is forcing HRC to answer some tough questions.... maybe for some "pre-spin".

I don't know... this story is odd and the time is odd.

Also, from your own source (huffpost one)

Media sometimes erroneously refer to Clinton as having shared classified documents. This is not something she is accused of. It is extremely difficult to share a classified document electronically over email. Most government agencies, including the State Department, maintain separate systems precisely to make it all but impossible to electronically pass information between classified and unclassified systems.

She literally had classified information on her private email system. It was the ONLY emailing infrastructure she used during her SoS tenure.

Someone had to illegally get the information from the classified infrastructure and transcribed it into her private email system.

[Deleted]

Nov 20, 2018 9:34:50 GMT -5 hatoflords said:

For all we know it didn't. This could have been a thing for years that only came up because casting doubt on election validity has achieved disturbing legitimacy as a political tactic, the GOP keeps having this issue where members of the party openly make comments about stopping their opponents from voting, and Kemp drew enhanced scrutiny on the process because of his office.

Someone would have to actually go an investigate, but politicians who win elections as we all know hate having those elections investigated. They'd much rather proclaim their "absolute victory" and "witch hunt." At best they'll start a Blue Ribbon commission, send it off to prove voter fraud for their opponent, and then suspend the commission when they don't find any evidence

I think there was an injunction of applying the law in 2010 or something.  From what I've read, it wasn't always applied year-to-year... I'll see if I can dig that up.

[Deleted]

Nov 20, 2018 10:00:16 GMT -5 ouze said:

Kind of annoyed Beto has somehow become a frontrunner for the dem candidate. There doesn't seem to be much *there* there.

People are saying that he's a white Obama.

You do have to admit, that he's JFK-eque.

I mean, it's almost a mirror image of how Trump succeeded in 2016.  Beto seems to be able to suck up the oxygen and dominate the stage/media like Trump was able to get 2 billion dollars of free media coverage.