Presidential debate October 18th Las Vegas

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

There's a lot of kool-aid being drunk around here, and it's not just democrats drinking it.
Quite frankly, if you're having to decipher and put in special clauses to what a candidate is saying then the candidate should not be saying it. Trump is a gold mine to spin, and you can blame the 'liberal media' and all the other Alex Jones boogey-men if you like, but at the end of the day Donald Trump is a very poor candidate for President, even more so than Hillary Clinton, to the point where the party that he's running for is regretting deeply everything that has happened. Now, you can say that this is exactly what you want to happen, that you want the 'establishment'™ to be shaken up, but quite frankly the only thing it has shaken up has been the Republican Party and it's damn near broken it. If you wanted to make the GOP even more toxic, then congratulations, electing Donald Trump to be its representative for President has done it.

OK but why congratulate me? I never vote in party primaries and intend to vote for Johnson next month and would have even if the Republicans had run a better candidate than Trump.

In any case that doesn't take away one bit from the fact that a Democrat administration, abetted by the corporate media, was going to do whatever it took to keep the Democrat nominee from answering to her crimes including holding secret meetings between the AG and the defendants husband. Nor does it take away from the fact that the same biased corporate media would have minimized and excused what they are crucifying Trump for doing if he was a Dem just like they are doing with the steady stream of incriminating emails from Clinton and Co.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

OK but why congratulate me? I never vote in party primaries and intend to vote for Johnson next month and would have even if the Republicans had run a better candidate than Trump.

In any case that doesn't take away one bit from the fact that a Democrat administration, abetted by the corporate media, was going to do whatever it took to keep the Democrat nominee from answering to her crimes including holding secret meetings between the AG and the defendants husband. Nor does it take away from the fact that the same biased corporate media would have minimized and excused what they are crucifying Trump for doing if he was a Dem just like they are doing with the steady stream of incriminating emails from Clinton and Co.

Sorry, bad choice of words, I meant the people who elected Trump to be Republican candidate, not yourself personally.
Absolutely, the Democrats have pulled very sleezy tricks, although I'm not sure in the most recent wikileaks emails exactly what is meant to be so devastating, the fact that it was Russian government activities that brought these emails out is perhaps a bit more concerning than the contents of the emails themselves which only serve to confirm a lot of what we already knew or suspected, that Hillary will think one thing but say another (just like most politicians) that she wants open borders and open trade (I can see open borders being a problem for Americans these days, but open trade is one of the founding principles of the free market system which America has always campaigned for), and that she will do anything to win. Now, imagine if this had been Mitt Romney, not Trump, running...now unless the Dems were able to pull up some kind of massive Mormon conspiracy, he would be making absolute hay with these emails, and you can be sure that the GOP would be at full capacity on pushing everything they had to keep anything dishonest or troublesome about Hillary on the front pages. But it's not Mitt, it's Trump, and he's a walking headline generator. It's a man who is more newsworthy than his party, and the fact that his party is not, and has never been, fully unified behind him only underlines the fact that the GOP has thrown this one. It let Trump get that momentum, because let's face it, if the GOP fact-checking hounds were anywhere near as competent as they claim to be (and indeed normally are) then these sex allegations and pussy comments would have come out during the Republican primaries and we would have Ted Cruz running against Hillary most likely, but the GOP stepped back because part of it wanted Trump, they wanted that strong man, that non-politically correct man, they wanted his power, his 'charisma' and they wanted that image, to court the 'Alt-Right', the Breitbarts and the 4chans. Trump was trendy, so they gave him a pass, when really all of the warning bells should have been ringing, when all of their senior members were shuffling their feet and saying "Well...errm...this might not be a good idea." Now all the chickens have come home to roost, and sure the Democrats have had a part in that, they've played some strong cards, but the simple fact is, Trump has played weak hands in return, he's blustered and bumbled from one soundbite to the next, and given his enemies absolutely everything they could have wanted. He's a perfect gift to the Democrat party, any other competent GOP candidate would have wiped the floor with Hillary, who is one of the most hated women in America, even her own voters are not fond of her, and Trump could have made hay with that, he could have split their party in two, brought chaos to the Democrats, but he's not the person to do that, instead he pretty much quotes from Alex Jones, attacks SNL, and basically bumbles around like an idiot.
I don't blame you for going third party, I think that I would still vote for Hillary if only to vote against Trump, but that's probably because I got burned badly with a third party in 2010 and that third party got vaporised in 2015. I hope that this doesn't happen with your third party, but I imagine that they've got more political acumen than Nick Clegg.

[August]

I don't know how the GOP could have found out about the tape since it was hidden in an NBC vault (and or DNC HQ) for when it could be used with the greatest effect.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

I don't know how the GOP could have found out about the tape since it was hidden in an NBC vault (and or DNC HQ) for when it could be used with the greatest effect.

What about the bit where he admitted walking through backstage at the Miss Universe pagents quote:

"They're standing there with no clothes. Is everybody ok? And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that."

That was from the Howard Stern show in 2005, and that's after the NBC days, so the GOP could perhaps have got that...I don't know the internal workings on the GOP intelligence service but it seems that they have dropped the ball in a manner which would make the CIA jealous. I mean, it's Donald Trump for goodness sake, not some nobody from hicksville, there must have been something they could have used.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Oberon

What about the bit where he admitted walking through backstage at the Miss Universe pagents quote:

"They're standing there with no clothes. Is everybody ok? And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that."

That was from the Howard Stern show in 2005, and that's after the NBC days, so the GOP could perhaps have got that...I don't know the internal workings on the GOP intelligence service but it seems that they have dropped the ball in a manner which would make the CIA jealous. I mean, it's Donald Trump for goodness sake, not some nobody from hicksville, there must have been something they could have used.

I suspect the GOP never thought Trump would make it this far. Trump would fizzle on his own. No need to go digging. Herman Caine was the same. When he became a serious contender did the sexual harassment news start breaking. The witch hunt began. It is the same tactic used here. All is fair in love and war.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Oberon

What about the bit where he admitted walking through backstage at the Miss Universe pagents quote:

"They're standing there with no clothes. Is everybody ok? And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that."

That was from the Howard Stern show in 2005, and that's after the NBC days, so the GOP could perhaps have got that...I don't know the internal workings on the GOP intelligence service but it seems that they have dropped the ball in a manner which would make the CIA jealous. I mean, it's Donald Trump for goodness sake, not some nobody from hicksville, there must have been something they could have used.

It isn't a problem with vetting. Everybody knew what Trump was all about, but once he accumulated the appropriate number of delegates the die was cast. The thing is that the primary system in the US is more of a team of rivals. The candidates want to win, but they also want the party to win. So you go after the other guys on the stage but you don't tear them down so much that the damage is irreparable.

Of course Trump didn't play by that rule, but everybody else did. And so he bullied his way through relatively unscathed. The vetters in the party knew about these things, everybody did, but what were they supposed to do? The only option was to sit and wait for this stuff to be used.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Catfish

I keep asking myself the same questions again and again.

Legitimate questions. And questions that deserve a serious answer. Here are my explanations.

- Why is there no other candidate than those two?

There are other candidates. Through more tradition than any other reason, the two major political parties nominate only one candidate for POTUS.

- How is it possible that an obviously crazy candidate even gets so far - in a "democracy"?

It is because of our democracy that these candidates were nominated. The way candidates were nominated has changed several times in our history.

In the first "real" election between Addams and Jefferson, each was nominated by their respective party members of congress.

in 1832, the first national conventions were used to nominate a candidate. This was the start of the "smoke filled backroom deals that continued to the 20th century.

From 1901-1906 various states started passing laws where the citizens of a state directly voted for delegates who, in turn attended the convention and voted for the nominee. This system mimics the electoral college method of voting for POTUS. This system caught on and by 1912 pretty much all the states had similar directly elected delegate systems.

President Wilson asked the state legislators to enact a unified national presidential primary law where the citizens would directly vote for the nominee. This did not go over well with the states. In addition to a prohibitive cost, there was actually a low voter turnout for these types of primaries. The political parties were also reluctant to allow citizens to make this decision and not the political party officials. Low voter turnout is hardly a new concept in the US. So little by little, the states either repealed or just ignored and the states went back to various forms of delegate elected state conventions. The result was that "Party Bosses" generally ran the conventions and not surprising, the people being nominated tended to be the people the political bosses wanted.

With the Depression and WWII, there was little interest in reforming the primary systems and everything stayed the same until 1944. This is one of the reasons FDR was able to be nominated four times.

From 1944-1968, voter participation increased and more interest in the nomination process resulted in the states adopting a more representative form of nomination.

The Democratic Party was the first to overhaul their nomination process but it slowly evolved over 20 years with no less than six separate committees working on this problem. Just like when this country was formed, there was disagreement about the number of representatives each state would have in the Congress, there was much disagreement about how many delegates would each state have at the Democratic National Convention.

The O'Hara Commission '69-'72 established a compromise system where a combination of the states total population and the number of popular votes for the previous four elections would be used to determine the number of delegates that each state could send to the convention. These rules were modified by a few more committees over the years.

All went well until the Hunt Commission '80-'82. There was a problem. With giving the citizens so much power over who would be a delegate and therefor the nomination process, the political parties of each state were seeing their power diminish. Remember that the political parties are a private organization and really have no official standing in the government. As a private organization, the officers feel that they should have more of a say of who gets nominated. The Hunt Commission solution? A new separate category of delegates called Super Delegates. The number of Super Delegates would be 14% of the total number of delegates. These delegates would be elected by party officials and would represent the party's desire. Super Delegates are not as bad as some make them out to be. Since the 1980's there has been no nomination that has been turned by the vote of the Super Delegates.

How about them Republicans? Well they were doing pretty much the same thing at the same time. Slowly revamping the nomination process albeit a bit slower then the Democrats did and they were not breaking any speed records. Political changes happen slowly.

The Republicans even considered their form of Super Delegates, but instead opted for their own system of unbound delegates, meaning that even though the citizens may elect a delegate based on their desire for a specific candidate, the delegates are not bound by this. It gets very complicated in that each state has its own system of designating which delegates are bound (have to follow the citizen vote) and unbound (can vote how they wish).

The bottom line is that both the Democrats and Republicans have the same types of delegates that are not bound to the citizen's wishes. The Democrats get more publicity because they are more open about it by identifying the Super Delegates, while the Republicans are more private with a complicated system of designating numbers of bound and unbound delegates. Neither side really has the right to criticize the other.

So after all that almost interesting history, the answer to your question is that both parties have nominated losers, because of the democratic way the nominees are chosen these days -- by popular vote.

Popular vote, as we all know, can be highly influenced by the media, the PACs, the political parties, and the candidates committees. But in the end, it is the people electing the bound delegates and if the Super Delegates/unbound delegates either agree or do not have enough votes to override, the popular vote carries the nomination.

Incidentally, this is why we elect the present by electoral college and not by popular vote. A popular vote does not guarantee a quality candidate.


- Why is H. Clinton so absolutely hated (apart from the republicans who automatically hate everything democratic), i mean there are other US presidents who got away with much worse stuff

Well, in my opinion, it is because she has been a politician for almost all of her life, but she is not a good politician. She is crocked like other politicians but is not very good at hiding it like more successful politicians.

She is, of course, suffering for the sins of her husband. Because of her husbands political career dating back to the state days, she has been in the spotlight so there has been more time to discover dirt about her than time to discover dirt about other politicians. Most people have known about Hillary since the mid 1980's. That's 30 years. How long has the public known about the other candidates? Familiarity breeds contempt and 30 years of spotlights tends to show all the flaws and Hillary has many flaws.


- Is this even a democracy or is it not like the good old middle-ages-feudal "election" system, where the nobles/rich elected their leader -> "Kurfuersten"-system

Well we are a republic where we democratically elect our representatives. We are not, never have been, and hopefully never well be a democracy. We like to call ourselves a democracy but that's only because it sounds nice. An actual democracy the size of our country would be a disaster.

- So there are only two parties, which now even have become one fraction?

Well, there are about 15 parties actually. Not all of them participate in all the elections. But for pretty much all practical purposes there are two political parties. It is, unfortunately a vicious circle. A lot of people won't vote for a third party because they think that a lot of people won't vote for a third party. Since that mindset makes people think that voting for a third party is "throwing away their vote" they vote for one of the two main losers, thereby reinforcing the understanding that there are only two viable political parties.


- Is there no rational reasonable person who can do better, as a new president for America?

Cynically, anyone who is truly qualified for the job probably does not want it. but not so cynically, considering the political environment for the past 40 years, would you want to be president? it used to be a pretty powerful position but now, with the advent of the Internet Tubes where anyone can share their bitches and complaints to everyone else, who would want the job. With Congress pretty much evenly divided, anyone who becomes president will be blocked by the opposing party.

It would be foolish to think that the Democrats won't take the same blocking attitude that the Republicans have done if a Republican became president.

Personally, I think that the publicity elected delegate system is flawed. A popular vote tends to elect people who are popular and not necessarily the right person. I wished I had the right answer as I could then sell it to the DNC and RNC and retire. Like any other political system, it requires a delicate balance and compromise between often conflicting ideals. As our history has shown, it is not an easy straightforward problem to solve. Either extreme is bad, but exactly where is the right balance between popular votes and party nominations?

I also believe that there should be no open primaries. Since the primaries are to communicate to a private organization (DNC/RNC), I feel it is appropriate for those private organizations to limit participation to registered members. Yes that would mean that independents like me won't be able to vote in a major party's primary but that's the disadvantage of being an independent... and the advantage.

- Why do republicans (but maybe not only) always talk of tyranny, accusing the president of not leaving when the period is over - not one president in the US has ever remained in place, after the period he was elected for.

First of all, it is not just republicans and certainly not all republicans. Don't fall into a common fallacy of taking the actions of a minority and generalizing it to the whole set of population. Neither the Democrats nor the Republican parties have ever tried to cancel an election nor accused the other party of doing the same. Members of the DNC/RNC have made such comments, but there are idiots in any population set.

If my memory serves me, I believe that it is the Republican Presidents that have been falsely accused of wanting to cancel elections more often than democratic presidents. It does not really matter. There is no way any US president would ever be able to pull this off.

The conspiracy morons often reference some sort of "emergency power" that allows the president to continue past his or her term. These emergency powers are always not defined.....because they don't exist. There is NO presidential power that would allow a president to suspend elections and continue past the term. Not in times of war. Not even in times of civil war. It does not happen in the US.

Once Congress tells a president to "git", they gotta git. The outgoing president does not have to participate in the inauguration of the new president.

Apart from that i think (personal opinion) that Obama has been the most reasonable and intelligent president of the US, since a long time. I still wonder how it was possible that he was elected.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion as are other people. I tend not to deal in hyperbole. He is neither the best nor the worst president we have had. Anyone who claims that he is the worst president we have ever had needs to read up on their 19th century presidential history. We had some doozies back then.

I hope that helped you understand the situation better. These were all legitimate questions.

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

That was from the Howard Stern show in 2005, and that's after the NBC days, so the GOP could perhaps have got that...I don't know the internal workings on the GOP intelligence service but it seems that they have dropped the ball in a manner which would make the CIA jealous. I mean, it's Donald Trump for goodness sake, not some nobody from hicksville, there must have been something they could have used.

Or maybe they did know and deliberately decided not to prepare for it. It's no secret that many in the party leadership want him to fail.

FWIW I heard on the way into work that Howard Stern has said he would not release tapes of his old shows where Trump was a guest.

Stern said on his SiriusXM radio show Monday morning. “I feel Donald Trump did the show in an effort to be entertaining and have fun with us, and I feel like it’d be a betrayal to any of our guests if I sat there and played them now, where people are attacking him.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...be-a-betrayal/

[aanker]

There was no button for me in this debate related poll. IMO this debate will have no effect. I think most people have already made their minds up regarding the election.

I believe that there are a lot of people who won't admit to friends, family, and pollsters that they support 'The Donald' - I call them 'Closet Trump Supporters'. Furthermore, Trump has attracted a lot of uncounted 'first time voters'. His rallies are packed with thousands, and thousands more are turned away. Her supporters appear to number in the hundreds, and they don't seem enthusiastic.

Someone mentioned Jesse Ventura. There is the Jesse factor too; people may vote Trump to spite the establishment just as my late Dad did. He was surprised the next morning to see that Jesse won. I was living in another state at the time.

I don't think that anyone can say that the third debate won't be entertaining. Trump is after all a master entertainer. This final debate will also have a good unbiased moderator in Chris Wallace.

Sorry if I strayed a little from only commenting on 'the 3rd debate'. I also wrote about other contributing factors to take into consideration with the third debate in calculating the final result.

[Tchocky]

I don't see any other outcome being likely except for Trump being Trump.

He'll excite his base and lose the election.

Clinton only has to let him go on and the damage will be done.

He's shown himself to be his own worst enemy.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Legitimate questions. And questions that deserve a serious answer. Here are my explanations. [...]

Wow thanks! I read a bit here and there on the web, but this is the first time i come to understand how elections are done in the US, especially this thing with the "Super delegates"
And all states by themselves..

Seems s lot is based on historical events, and evolved out of understanding what works and what not. And yes, how it is described it is not a real democracy, but as you said a direct one for all aspects of decisions would probably screw up a country - you need at least some education, knowledge and experience.. even in Switzerland direct democracy is only applied seldomly, for certain decisions, and carefully.

Otherwise a lot of democracies would suddenly have the death penalty back, a lot more nationalism/chauvinism, and do their way of 'Brexit'

Will read this again thoroughly this evening, thanks again Platapus!

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by aanker

Someone mentioned Jesse Ventura. There is the Jesse factor too; people may vote Trump to spite the establishment just as my late Dad did. He was surprised the next morning to see that Jesse won. I was living in another state at the time.

SOMEONE??!! aw jeeze! and I'm on your friends list too...That's not exactly "Minnesota Nice" but here's an extra Aracept fer ya' good buddy: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=223132 You betcha' BBY; we sixty-somethings gotta stick together!
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2386208#post2386208

The Jesse Ventura Effect. Finally, do not discount the electorate’s ability to be mischievous or underestimate how any millions fancy themselves as closet anarchists once they draw the curtain and are all alone in the voting booth. It’s one of the few places left in society where there are no security cameras, no listening devices, no spouses, no kids, no boss, no cops, there’s not even a friggin’ time limit. You can take as long as you need in there and no one can make you do anything. You can push the button and vote a straight party line, or you can write in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There are no rules. And because of that, and the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can. Just because it will upset the apple cart and make mommy and daddy mad. And in the same way like when you’re standing on the edge of Niagara Falls and your mind wonders for a moment what would that feel like to go over that thing, a lot of people are going to love being in the position of puppetmaster and plunking down for Trump just to see what that might look like. Remember back in the ‘90s when the people of Minnesota elected a professional wrestler as their governor? They didn’t do this because they’re stupid or thought that Jesse Ventura was some sort of statesman or political intellectual. They did so just because they could. Minnesota is one of the smartest states in the country. It is also filled with people who have a dark sense of humor — and voting for Ventura was their version of a good practical joke on a sick political system. This is going to happen again with Trump.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_nice <

[aanker]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

SOMEONE??!! aw jeeze! and I'm on your friends list too...That's not exactly "Minnesota Nice" but here's an extra Aracept fer ya' good buddy: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=223132 You betcha' BBY; we sixty-somethings gotta stick together!
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2386208#post2386208 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_nice <

Yeah, yeah, I just didn't want to mention you by name so you wouldn't be associated with my little semi 'off topic' post.

Just trying to protect you baby! LOL

Nice finds btw.

[Mr Quatro]

I wonder if Trump is a hypocrite:http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hypocrite

a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.

He has pointed out that he thinks Hillary is on some kind of performance enhancing drug, but what about the second debate and his sniffles?

Could Donald himself be using cocaine?

Just a few more hours and we will see if he has the same sniffles

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Will read this again thoroughly this evening, thanks again Platapus!

you are most welcome. While I have a low tolerance for the political whining that goes on here and the other sites, When someone asks a legitimate question, it deserves a legitimate question.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. Answering these types of questions is kinda my real life job.