Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sheb]

Hey, I don't need convincing that Trump would be a terrible president, I was just pointing out that this one sentence could make sense. :p

[wierd]

Seriously-- Can somebody point out a rich conservative that ISNT running for president? I am just waiting for the Kochs to make a bid.

[nenjin]

In his defense, he also called for major investment in infrastructure.

Only because he probably has vested interest in a concrete company somewhere.

Trump would rob this country blind, like old school mafia contractors, if we put him the White house. I can't believe anyone with ears and two braincells would take him seriously.

[Descan]

Seriously-- Can somebody point out a rich conservative that ISNT running for president? I am just waiting for the Kochs to make a bid.

They already have: Literally everyone already running~

[wierd]

Here's the thing that makes me laugh inside though.

With this many conservative candidates running, they have split up the conservative voting block, leaving the liberal voting block mostly homogeneous.  This HARMS the chances of a conservative presidential election, because US is First Past The Post. If the conservatives REALLY want to win this, they need to stop *ALL* running, get their heads together in a huddle, and pick ONE of them as the mouthpiece.

As it stands, if ALL of those rich bastards actually start actual presidential campaigns, and we have a 13 candidate ballot, the number of electors required for a liberal candidate will be likewise reduced. With the greater homogeneity, it's a democrat win shoe-in.

WTF are they thinking?

[Frumple]

... that primaries exist?

[nenjin]

You can thank the Tea Party for splitting what has historically be a more unified Republican front.

[wierd]

True that--  But with this many coming out of the woodwork, (and with how aggressively they are going for it) I can still see some of them deciding to run for actual presidency after the primaries as an independent, and splitting the vote.

My views on the sanity of this era's politicians are not that positive.

[Frumple]

... last I checked, they're not really that split, though, nenj. Republicans are pretty notorious for being one of the most staunchly party-voting groups in the US political sphere. If the tea-party preferred candidate doesn't win the primary, most of that group is still going to vote for whoever does. Do believe we are getting some splintering, but it's still not really substantial from a ballot marking perspective.

Basically, we're probably not at the point you can really expect the vote to split, yet. Getting there, maybe, but not there.

[RedKing]

We're all forgetting the important part here. The real question is, which candidate is most likely to usher in the cyberpunk dystopia?

Now I know, I know, you're going to say all of them because muh corporate donations, but we need to look deeper than that. There merely being an industrial supplementation of democracy and liberty isn't enough to be cyberpunk, we also need the world to go to shit hard and fast enough that you can have the punk in the societal rifts that are beyond control.

I say that Trump is the man for this, as his claim to fame is going so badly into debt that he rode the Sunk Cost Fallacy all the way to being rich and owning banks. Just imagine that in the White House!

Good point. He's (ab)used bankruptcy law to write off billions in losses over the years, and has no shame about doing so. I'm not sure if he understands that the Federal government can't play by the same rules.

I rather like the campaign idea of "America: Too Big To Fail" though. Rack up a shit-ton of debt to every other country on the planet, then pull a Greece and decide we're not paying back any of it. And when they complain, say "Whadda ya going to do about it? You need our trade, you need our foreign aid, and you need our military." Now that's a macho, American-exceptionalist way to rebuild America.


@wierd: Umm, what Frumple said. Regardless of the circus sideshow now, there will only be one rich white guy (and let's be honest here, it's gonna be a rich white guy -- Carson, Jindal and Fiorina have no shot in hell) on the ballot for the Republicans. Well, probably two if you count the VP. And running as an independent for President is the kiss of death. For one, they'd have to stage huge petition drives to even get on the ballot in most states. They don't just stick anyone running for President on the ballot, otherwise it'd be forty pages long. There are many, many fringe and crackpot candidates every cycle. In fact, one of the greatest successes of Ross Perot's Reform Party was in actually getting a third party candidate on the national ballot. Even the Greens and Libertarians aren't automatically on the ballot in most places.

[wierd]

I dunno. I see salivating rich white guys drooling over being the guy that 'Cleans up' after Obama (trying to phrase it in a PC tone, in the mindset they would have) drooling in the same fashion they get when they see porkbarrel money waved at them.

I fully expect at least some portion of them to go full retard.

[Frumple]

Oh, one or two sometimes will, from what I recall. It's not terribly unusual for one or two candidates to go independent after losing the primaries. It's just that nothing comes of it, if they're even able to get on the ballot afterwards at all.

[Descan]

If it were someone like Clinton going independent after losing the primary, that might have the effect.

But I don't think the Republicans have even one person with that level of notoriety, let alone two (one to win the primary, one to split the vote)

[wierd]

You arent thinking like a corrupt asshat politician.

Let's say we have a horrible outcome that makes baby jesus cry rivers of blood or something--  and we see an unholy alliance after the primaries of say Trump and one of the Kochs as the independent candidate ticket. The combined wealth of that independant ticket would allow them to fully finance the campaign out of their own pockets, and buy the airtime needed to force the issue of being on the ballot proper.

[nenjin]

... last I checked, they're not really that split, though, nenj. Republicans are pretty notorious for being one of the most staunchly party-voting groups in the US political sphere. If the tea-party preferred candidate doesn't win the primary, most of that group is still going to vote for whoever does. Do believe we are getting some splintering, but it's still not really substantial from a ballot marking perspective.

Basically, we're probably not at the point you can really expect the vote to split, yet. Getting there, maybe, but not there.

I was speaking more leading up to the primaries. Both parties have an interest in keeping the pool of candidates for their party smaller. Name recognition carries past the primaries into the general election. My sense is that normal backroom discussions about which front runners to have hasn't happened in this instance; there's a wing of the republican party that isn't really playing nice with the establishment. That also translates into Republicans hammering each other harder in the lead up to the primaries than they might otherwise have done.