Hillary Clinton is honest and trustworthy

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-15-2016, 05:08 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Uppity means having the unmitigated gall to believe that someone like them deserves to be president--and then winning.

I've seen too much of Trump lately. The first time I read the above, I read 'whining' rather than 'winning'.

[Eric the Green]

(08-15-2016, 05:08 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-12-2016, 08:30 AM)David Horn Wrote: Hillary is very talented but also highly flawed.  She always sees herself under siege...

Are you suggesting she is not?  President Obama is not a Clinton.  He is as gifted a pol as Bill--yet he is far more hated on the Right than Bill was. It is likely Hillary will be even more hated than Obama was.  Do you deny this?

Do you believe that there exists an uppity Democrat* who would NOT be under siege by the right?

*Uppity means having the unmitigated gall to believe that someone like them deserves to be president--and then winning.

That's exactly so. (with corrected typos too!)

[David Horn]

(08-15-2016, 05:08 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-12-2016, 08:30 AM)David Horn Wrote: Hillary is very talented but also highly flawed.  She always sees herself under siege...

Are you suggesting she is not?  Presideint Obama is not a Clinton.  He is as gifted a pol as Bill--yet he is far more hated on the Right than Bill was. It is likely Hillary will be even more hated than Obama was.  Do you deny this?

Do you beleive that there exists an uppity Democrat* who would NOT be under siege by the right?

*Uppity means having the unmitigated gall to believe that someone like them deserves to be president--and then winning.

I don't disagree that, in what may be the final days of their party's existence, the entire GOP roster will do anything and everything to make the not-GOP POTUS squirm.  It's about all they have left.  In his time, FDR got the same treatment.  The difference between then and now is how the response was handled.  FDR stood his ground, and gave better than he got.  I don't see Hillary in that role, because it's not in her nature.  Worse, this is not something that can be handed to surrogates, so it will not get done. 

If she had any vision of where she is going and how she might get there, she should be moving her message away from all-Hillary-all-the-time to a unity message with the down-ballot Democrats.  She should hang Trump on the entire party and call for a wholesale replacement of Congressional GOPpers with people who will move the country forward, rather than sink in a mire of incompetence.  She should encourage others to do likewise ... but she's not.

There's actually a possibility that Pat Toomey might get reelected, yet Hillary is only focusing on herself in PA.  And Toomey is only one of several solid targets she's ignoring.  She may pay a high price for that starting in January 2017.  If the Senate remains in GOP hands, they'll burn the place down before they lift a finger to help her in any way, then they will put the blame on her -- probably with a modicum of success.

[Eric the Green]

My friend posted this little exercize:

Teed Rockwell
Yesterday at 11:37am

Hey Kids!! Would you like to build your very own Clinton scandal? Then follow these simple instructions:
1) Make up an accusation, and demand that it be investigated. Let your imagination go wild on this one. Murder, espionage, theft, whatever you think will scare people the most.
2) In the process of this investigation, you will find some kind of suboptimal behavior. Nobody's perfect. Every organization has rules that everyone breaks, even though it would arguably be better if they kept them. The chances that a Clinton has broken one of those rules are very high.
3)People who work for any organization know that certain rules can be safely bent, and don't worry about it. But the general public, including you and me, have no way of making intelligent judgments about this. The rule always looks good on paper, or it never would have gotten onto paper in the first place. So the next step is to point out the possible dangers of breaking this rule in as hysterical tone as possible, and claim that no one who feels entitled to break that rule should ever be trusted with public office.
4) When someone points out that numerous other public officials have done the same thing, you have two available strategies:
A) Find some difference between the Clinton's behavior and the other case, and claim that this difference is essential. It doesn't matter how trivial the difference is. The distinction between essential and accidental is impossible to define anyway, so table pounding is always the best strategy for drawing it.
B) Claim that if you had your way, these other public officials would also be prosecuted. This is an easy claim to make, as you don't have the power to prosecute, and most of the other officials are either retired or dead.
So there you have it, Kids. Everything you need to make your very own Clinton scandal. Why not do it today? Have Fun!

[Eric the Green]

(08-16-2016, 04:35 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-15-2016, 05:08 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-12-2016, 08:30 AM)David Horn Wrote: Hillary is very talented but also highly flawed.  She always sees herself under siege...

Are you suggesting she is not?  Presideint Obama is not a Clinton.  He is as gifted a pol as Bill--yet he is far more hated on the Right than Bill was. It is likely Hillary will be even more hated than Obama was.  Do you deny this?

Do you beleive that there exists an uppity Democrat* who would NOT be under siege by the right?

*Uppity means having the unmitigated gall to believe that someone like them deserves to be president--and then winning.

I don't disagree that, in what may be the final days of their party's existence, the entire GOP roster will do anything and everything to make the not-GOP POTUS squirm.  It's about all they have left.  In his time, FDR got the same treatment.  The difference between then and now is how the response was handled.  FDR stood his ground, and gave better than he got.  I don't see Hillary in that role, because it's not in her nature.  Worse, this is not something that can be handed to surrogates, so it will not get done. 

Well, it's getting done; but FDR had a ringing voice that could reach a high volume, while Hillary, when she gets loud, sounds like she's shouting.

So, as I would call it, it's the difference between someone with an 18-6 score and someone with only a 12-9 score.
But she has Jupiter rising, which appears to be almost invincible, unless the candidate has a negative score; or in the case of Taft (12-9) and TR (13-13), barely positive scores-- who each won an election, but who also ran against each other and Woodrow Wilson (13-9) and lost; Taft's score being identical to Hillary's, as is easy to tell.

Others who had Jupiter rising who won: Polk (21-2), Taylor (10-5), Lincoln (15-2), Grant (16-4), Lyndon Johnson (10-7), Bill Clinton (19-2). Reagan (19-5) may also have had Jupiter rising. Those who had Jupiter rising, but lost: Breckinridge (2-23), George Wallace (2-6, aggressive Mars also rising), and Mondale (10-13). Perhaps with Hillary, who might not be able to win except that Trump (8-4, belligerent Mars rising) is her opponent, lucky-Jupiter rising provides the luck of the draw!

Quote:If she had any vision of where she is going and how she might get there, she should be moving her message away from all-Hillary-all-the-time to a unity message with the down-ballot Democrats.  She should hang Trump on the entire party and call for a wholesale replacement of Congressional GOPpers with people who will move the country forward, rather than sink in a mire of incompetence.  She should encourage others to do likewise ... but she's not.

Amen to that; I've have heard her allude to this, but it has to be a lot stronger.

Quote:There's actually a possibility that Pat Toomey might get reelected, yet Hillary is only focusing on herself in PA.  And Toomey is only one of several solid targets she's ignoring.  She may pay a high price for that starting in January 2017.  If the Senate remains in GOP hands, they'll burn the place down before they lift a finger to help her in any way, then they will put the blame on her -- probably with a modicum of success.

Hillary should listen to you, and me, about this! Obama made the same mistake in 2012. We'll see.

[playwrite]

(08-14-2016, 08:52 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-14-2016, 01:21 PM)playwrite Wrote: Again, when the Rightess bring these up in their Gist Gallop, there is no time to go back over all of them and correct them with the facts and context.  My hope is that as this Gish Gallop ShXt goes on and on into the Hillary Presidency, people will finally catch on and discard  the tactic - just like we are discarding much of the other rearguard actions (gerrymandering, voter suppression, Faux News, Rush Limbaugh, corporate campaign financing, etc) of a dying political force at least at the national level.

You are allowed to hope, but people will continue to believe what they want to believe.  The Gish Gallop stuff reminds me of Clinton 42's time in office.  The Republicans pushed scandal the whole time.  It was to a great degree ignored.  Clinton 42 was the teflon man, nothing truly fatally stuck, yet the image of the Clintons as tainted persisted under the "if smoke then fire" theory.  Hillary is still tainted by the sheer persistence of it.

If Trump continues to sink his few remaining hopes, the Republicans will have few cards to play other than Gish Gallop.  I'm inclined to think Trump will not only make himself look foolish, but by implication anything that touches the Republican path.  But this is only true of those who haven't truly bought in to the Republican path.  We still have a few die hard partisans here, and there are many more of them out in the wild.  They won't vanish.  Even assuming a regeneracy does develop, they will sip tea and cuss out "That Woman in the White House" for the duration.  While Trump might leave a majority out of the Republican's reach for some time, if you aren't going to win a majority, Gish Gallop could allow them to cling to a rabid base.  If there is only one card left in one's hand, one plays it.

I'm not underestimating the power of values lock.  I doubt it can stop something like a regeneracy indefinitely, but FDR and Lincoln remained anathema to some right up until they died and were sainted.  I'm not expecting things to be much different in our time, not that I think Hillary is fit company for the true grey champions, nor that this crisis will seem like as key a transformational period as FDR's and Lincoln's.

That's probable true, but part of the general populace grasping the Gish Gallop frequent use will be the added bonus of grasping that it will still work, and likely continue to work, with 35% of the population that will itself continue to shrink. 

What one should recognize at this very moment, however, is we don't need to either win over or compromise with the shrinking 35% for a transformational period- we only need to defeat them as a national political force, and that is already underway.

[playwrite]

(08-16-2016, 05:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: My friend posted this little exercize:

Teed Rockwell
Yesterday at 11:37am

Hey Kids!! Would you like to build your very own Clinton scandal? Then follow these simple instructions:
1) Make up an accusation, and demand that it be investigated. Let your imagination go wild on this one. Murder, espionage, theft, whatever you think will scare people the most.
2) In the process of this investigation, you will find some kind of suboptimal behavior. Nobody's perfect. Every organization has rules that everyone breaks, even though it would arguably be better if they kept them. The chances that a Clinton has broken one of those rules are very high.
3)People who work for any organization know that certain rules can be safely bent, and don't worry about it. But the general public, including you and me, have no way of making intelligent judgments about this. The rule always looks good on paper, or it never would have gotten onto paper in the first place. So the next step is to point out the possible dangers of breaking this rule in as hysterical tone as possible, and claim that no one who feels entitled to break that rule should ever be trusted with public office.
4) When someone points out that numerous other public officials have done the same thing, you have two available strategies:
A) Find some difference between the Clinton's behavior and the other case, and claim that this difference is essential. It doesn't matter how trivial the difference is. The distinction between essential and accidental is impossible to define anyway, so table pounding is always the best strategy for drawing it.
B) Claim that if you had your way, these other public officials would also be prosecuted. This is an easy claim to make, as you don't have the power to prosecute, and most of the other officials are either retired or dead.
So there you have it, Kids. Everything you need to make your very own Clinton scandal. Why not do it today? Have Fun!

With the FBI's letter to Congress -

FBI Lettter

- let's see who from the supposed values-oriented Right has the gonads to apologize to Clinton.

What a joke the Right has become in this country.

[Mikebert]

”David Horn” Wrote:I don't disagree that, in what may be the final days of their party's existence, the entire GOP roster will do anything and everything to make the not-GOP POTUS squirm.

I don’t buy this narrative.  It refers to presidential election alone, and asserts that a single large defeat spells the end of their party.  McGovern got clobbered worse than Trump is going to be, and yet Dems went on to win the very next presidential election, hold House for the next 22 years and the Senate for 16 of those years.

Quote:In his time, FDR got the same treatment.  The difference between then and now is how the response was handled.  FDR stood his ground, and gave better than he got.  I don't see Hillary in that role, because it's not in her nature.

Another false narrative as I see it.  FDR was elected AFTER the economy had collapsed. It was the collapse of the economy from an elite perspective that defeated the Republicans, FDR had nothing to do with that.  What FDR did was not fuck up too bad when it was his turn.

Right now the economy has never been better from an elite perspective.  As long as this remains true the Republican party and the corporate-dominated Democratic party will go from strength to strength.

Quote:If she had any vision of where she is going and how she might get there, she should be moving her message away from all-Hillary-all-the-time to a unity message with the down-ballot Democrats.  She should hang Trump on the entire party and call for a wholesale replacement of Congressional GOPpers with people who will move the country forward, rather than sink in a mire of incompetence.  She should encourage others to do likewise ... but she's not.

Running for president is a pain in the ass.  Nobody who didn’t want the position very much would put up with all that bullshit. Hillary very much wants to be president.  Why? What do you see as her motivation?

[Eric the Green]

(08-17-2016, 11:27 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

”David Horn” Wrote:I don't disagree that, in what may be the final days of their party's existence, the entire GOP roster will do anything and everything to make the not-GOP POTUS squirm.

I don’t buy this narrative.  It refers to presidential election alone, and asserts that a single large defeat spells the end of their party.  McGovern got clobbered worse than Trump is going to be, and yet Dems went on to win the very next presidential election, hold House for the next 22 years and the Senate for 16 of those years.

The point as I read it is not what a defeat signals; it's that the GOP NEEDS to get clobbered in all the races, not just the presidential race, or a presidential victory means little.

Quote:

Quote:In his time, FDR got the same treatment.  The difference between then and now is how the response was handled.  FDR stood his ground, and gave better than he got.  I don't see Hillary in that role, because it's not in her nature.

Another false narrative as I see it.  FDR was elected AFTER the economy had collapsed. It was the collapse of the economy from an elite perspective that defeated the Republicans, FDR had nothing to do with that.  What FDR did was not fuck up too bad when it was his turn.
Right now the economy has never been better from an elite perspective.  As long as this remains true the Republican party and the corporate-dominated Democratic party will go from strength to strength.

David's point as I read it was about how he was treated after he was elected. He gave as good as he got by saying 4 years later that the elites are unanimous in their hatred for him, and he welcomed their hatred.

The economy is not good, and most people know that, even if it's good for the elites. The question is whether the people can see through the elites' propaganda enough to see that defeating the Republicans at all levels is the path to change, or at least the first step on that path.

Quote:

Quote:If she had any vision of where she is going and how she might get there, she should be moving her message away from all-Hillary-all-the-time to a unity message with the down-ballot Democrats.  She should hang Trump on the entire party and call for a wholesale replacement of Congressional GOPpers with people who will move the country forward, rather than sink in a mire of incompetence.  She should encourage others to do likewise ... but she's not.

Running for president is a pain in the ass.  Nobody who didn’t want the position very much would put up with all that bullshit. Hillary very much wants to be president.  Why? What do you see as her motivation?

The point is that she needs a congress too, or she won't accomplish much. She sometimes says she can convince the GOP congress to do something. She can't. No-one can.

[Mikebert]

I did a quick sleaze analysis on the Clintons.  I got cumulative income for 2000-2007 from a site I neglected to bookmark.  Here is one with some of the same info.  Took the total income, subtracted taxes, charitable giving and living expenses (assume at $1 million/year) and summed up the residual.  I then applied an adjustable return to this amount and summed it up to obtain investment income, which the source said totaled $15.5 million over 2000-2007. I needed a 6.8% return to get the two amounts to balance.  This seems in line with professionally managed hedge funds.  The biggest source of income was Bill’s ca. 30 speeches a year at $250K a pop on average that yielded 48% of their gross income, on average.  Book revenues amounted to 37% and the investment income mentioned above about  
This accounts for 98.5% of their income.  Added to this is Hillary’s salary and Bill’s pension, which amounts to 1.2% of the total income, bringing the total accounted for up to 99.7%.

The big issue is the $250K speeches.  Clinton is a good speaker, and seems mighty popular.  George W. Bush has managed to give speeches at the same rate as Bill did in the 7 years since he left office.  Yet he only fetches 100-175K per speech.  It appears that there is big money in speechifying for famous people:

• Fees are never public and are often exaggerated by speakers, while bookers play them down. According to industry insiders, big names can get more than $50,000 a speech, while former presidents and the market’s top attractions can hit the $200,000-to-$300,000 mark. Traditionally, bureaus get a 20 percent cut. But when it comes to landing big fish, the bureaus often take a smaller cut or even nothing in the hopes of windfalls down the road. By contrast, lesser-known speakers intent on upping their profiles offer services for free or even pay bureaus to hawk their goods in front of audiences.
  

Based on what I found, I see the Clintons as no more corrupt than any of the other folks making bank on their celebrity.  They aren’t doing anything that lots of Americans aren’t trying to do on youtube, reality TV or in social media.

[Mikebert]

People might wonder why I seem to stress elites and discount the idea of "the people rising up". The people rising up was a real source of political-economic change in Europe, but not in America. As American Marxists noted, America is exceptional. The key to see this is to note how throughout the entire post-Civil War period, the working class (i.e. the Marxist proletariat) has always been politically divided between the two major parties.

It's true today; Bernie Sanders activated one group of frustrated working people, while Donald Trump activated another. Worse than that, only about half the constituency on the Left that Bernie sought to activate went for his economic message, as shown by the BLM protesters taking over one of his events early in his campaign. The take home message was there were non-economic issues just as important as economics (e.g. Black and Latino civil rights). Analysis of Donald Trump’s working class supporters has shown that they are just as motived by noneconomic socio-cultural issues as economics.

And it was true in the years leading up to the Great Depression. Urban working class immigrants “wets” were Democrats while white working class “drys” (along with Blacks) were Republicans.

The only time it changed was during the Depression and the years after, when the memory of it remained fresh. When the memory faded with the departure of the GI generation to normal pattern reasserted itself. The cause of this difference from Europe. America’s original sin, a legacy so engrained, so pervasive, and so unresolvable as to be un-discussable.

[David Horn]

(08-17-2016, 11:27 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

David Horn Wrote:I don't disagree that, in what may be the final days of their party's existence, the entire GOP roster will do anything and everything to make the not-GOP POTUS squirm.

I don’t buy this narrative.  It refers to presidential election alone, and asserts that a single large defeat spells the end of their party.  McGovern got clobbered worse than Trump is going to be, and yet Dems went on to win the very next presidential election, hold House for the next 22 years and the Senate for 16 of those years.

McGovern may have been a poor candidate, and one not to the liking of the party nabobs, but he didn't actively work to tear the party apart.  In fact, he was a war hero, so being a pacifist was a lot harder to use against him personally so the power brokers held their fire as well.  Trump is different.  Think more along the lines of the 1824 race, which ended by splitting the Republican-Democrats in two, and eventually birthing the Whigs. This time it's the GOP that's strained because, frankly, their coalition never made sense from the beginning. Now, Trump pulled back the curtain and let the ugly out.  Do you honestly think this can be smoothed over?  If somehow it is, do you think the party will remain as strong in the future?   My bet: a realignment with the money moving to the Dems, setting-up an unstable coalition over there.

Mikebert Wrote:

David Horn Wrote:In his time, FDR got the same treatment.  The difference between then and now is how the response was handled.  FDR stood his ground, and gave better than he got.  I don't see Hillary in that role, because it's not in her nature.

Another false narrative as I see it.  FDR was elected AFTER the economy had collapsed. It was the collapse of the economy from an elite perspective that defeated the Republicans, FDR had nothing to do with that.  What FDR did was not fuck up too bad when it was his turn.

Right now the economy has never been better from an elite perspective.  As long as this remains true the Republican party and the corporate-dominated Democratic party will go from strength to strength.

Unless history truly repeats, FDR will remain the only President the elites tried to overthrow in a coup, albeit a poorly planned one.  The knives were out for him, but he used it as a strength rather than a weakness.  Hillary tends to rely on the woe-is-me; they-done-me-wrong approach.  

But you're right about one thing.  This is all about narrative.

Mikebert Wrote:

David Horn Wrote:If she had any vision of where she is going and how she might get there, she should be moving her message away from all-Hillary-all-the-time to a unity message with the down-ballot Democrats.  She should hang Trump on the entire party and call for a wholesale replacement of Congressional GOPpers with people who will move the country forward, rather than sink in a mire of incompetence.  She should encourage others to do likewise ... but she's not.

Running for president is a pain in the ass.  Nobody who didn’t want the position very much would put up with all that bullshit. Hillary very much wants to be president.  Why? What do you see as her motivation?

No, we agree 100% here.  Hillary wants the position and the prestige that goes with it.  I'm less convinced she actually wants to accomplish all that much though.  Most of her stated goals falls solidly in the small-ball range.  Since Presidents only get a portion of the things they request.  I see a disappointing next 4 years, maybe less inspiring than the post-2010 Obama experience ... setting up the critical 2020 election for the not-Dems

[playwrite]

(08-16-2016, 04:35 PM)David Horn Wrote: [quote pid='7224' dateline='1471255729']
There's actually a possibility that Pat Toomey might get reelected, yet Hillary is only focusing on herself in PA.  And Toomey is only one of several solid targets she's ignoring.  She may pay a high price for that starting in January 2017.  If the Senate remains in GOP hands, they'll burn the place down before they lift a finger to help her in any way, then they will put the blame on her -- probably with a modicum of success.

[/quote]

This is silly.  The best thing that Clinton can do for Katie McGinty, Toomey's challenger, is to win PA and win it big.

Any pollster/analyst worth his salt will tell you a split ticket voter is a rarity if not a myth.

Here's some recent insight on this for House elections, specifically for a Virginia seat,  but the article points out that this is an element in all House seats.  It is even more true for Senate seats.  Check the links for some really good insights -

GOP Pollster: 2012 Data Predicts Dire Situation for House GOP like Comstock

Also, McGinty has recently pulled even, if not ahead, of Toomey in the most recent polling -

Another poll shows Katie McGinty overtaking Pat Toomey in Pa. Senate race

- and that has everything to do with Clinton beating the Dumpster.

[playwrite]

(08-17-2016, 02:52 PM)David Horn Wrote: No, we agree 100% here.  Hillary wants the position and the prestige that goes with it.  I'm less convinced she actually wants to accomplish all that much though.  Most of her stated goals falls solidly in the small-ball range.  Since Presidents only get a portion of the things they request.  I see a disappointing next 4 years, maybe less inspiring than the post-2010 Obama experience ... setting up the critical 2020 election for the not-Dems

Making the SCOTUS Progressive for several decades is not small ball, it's about as big a thing possible on the domestic policy side.

Also, as I said earlier, low expectations for her, and Clinton not having Obama's 1st term naivety concerning the GOP, positions her to perhaps get more actually done than people now believe possible.  Stay tune.

[Mikebert]

(08-17-2016, 02:52 PM)David Horn Wrote: No, we agree 100% here.  Hillary wants the position and the prestige that goes with it.  I'm less convinced she actually wants to accomplish all that much though.  Most of her stated goals falls solidly in the small-ball range.  Since Presidents only get a portion of the things they request.  I see a disappointing next 4 years, maybe less inspiring than the post-2010 Obama experience ... setting up the critical 2020 election for the not-Dems

There nothing to agree with here.  I asked you a question.  What do you see as her motivation.  Do you seriously think that Hillary would do all this work just for the brief thrill of hearing them play "Hail to the Chief" when she walks into a room?  That's Trump's motivation, but there are two differences with him: (1) he is not working a third as hard on his campaign as Hillary (it shows) and (2) he has already implied he would delegate most of the work to Pence and others, while keeping the presteige for himself.  One the whole its just another trophy for him, and not work more than the effort he is giving it.  Trump makes sense to me.

On the other hand, Hillary plans to work at the job as hard as Obama did, maybe even harder.  She KNOWS the Congressional Republicans will try to block her every move.  She KNOWS there is going to be a recession on her first term.  She KNOWS she faces a better than even chance of going down as a hated president.  And yet she she is willing to work like a dog for this shit sandwich of a job and then buckle down and DO IT.  it makes no sense. Why is she doing this?

I can see why Bill made such an effort, he was young and had relatively little money (when they became president the Clintons were about as rich as we were at their age.)  They are not great money managers, they pay ridiculous tax rates (more than twice what a Romney pays) whcih proves they don't *think* like rich people, but rather like the politicians they are. Neverheless they have more money than could ever spend and won't ever need any more for personal reasons.  I believe Obama plans to take the same path and soon he and Michelle will be buried in cash. 

But Bill and Hill are loaded.  Money is no longer any motivation so why is she doing this?  I understood why Bush and McCain and Romney ran.  But what personal motivation Hillary could have is hard to see.

[David Horn]

(08-17-2016, 09:12 PM)playwrite Wrote:

(08-16-2016, 04:35 PM)David Horn Wrote: There's actually a possibility that Pat Toomey might get reelected, yet Hillary is only focusing on herself in PA.  And Toomey is only one of several solid targets she's ignoring.  She may pay a high price for that starting in January 2017.  If the Senate remains in GOP hands, they'll burn the place down before they lift a finger to help her in any way, then they will put the blame on her -- probably with a modicum of success.

This is silly.  The best thing that Clinton can do for Katie McGinty, Toomey's challenger, is to win PA and win it big.

Any pollster/analyst worth his salt will tell you a split ticket voter is a rarity if not a myth.

Here's some recent insight on this for House elections, specifically for a Virginia seat,  but the article points out that this is an element in all House seats.  It is even more true for Senate seats.  Check the links for some really good insights -

GOP Pollster: 2012 Data Predicts Dire Situation for House GOP like Comstock

Also, McGinty has recently pulled even, if not ahead, of Toomey in the most recent polling -

Another poll shows Katie McGinty overtaking Pat Toomey in Pa. Senate race

- and that has everything to do with Clinton beating the Dumpster.

Do you honestly believe that this race is in any way similar to any in recent memory?  The last thing I would assume is past-as-prologue in any generic sense.  Worse, the GOP has a model from the past that allowed them to focus on Article I races and ignore the big Article II contest they couldn't win then and can't win now: 1996.  In fact, there are any number of Presidential elections that coincide with Congressional elections won in whole or in part by the opposite party, so ticket splitting or null voting had to occur on a substantial scale.



I could easily see mainline GOPpers marching off the polls and ignoring the top-of-the-ticket race entirely.  In fact, a bit of fear of what is inevitable when Hillary wins may be an enormous motivator.  In any case, not making an argument for a united vote for all Democrats is simply foolish if not outright suicidal.  For Hillary to lose at this point is extremely unlikely.  She can afford to be generous and a bit self-effacing.

[David Horn]

(08-18-2016, 05:39 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-17-2016, 02:52 PM)David Horn Wrote: No, we agree 100% here.  Hillary wants the position and the prestige that goes with it.  I'm less convinced she actually wants to accomplish all that much though.  Most of her stated goals falls solidly in the small-ball range.  Since Presidents only get a portion of the things they request.  I see a disappointing next 4 years, maybe less inspiring than the post-2010 Obama experience ... setting up the critical 2020 election for the not-Dems

There nothing to agree with here.  I asked you a question.  What do you see as her motivation.  Do you seriously think that Hillary would do all this work just for the brief thrill of hearing them play "Hail to the Chief" when she walks into a room?  That's Trump's motivation, but there are two differences with him: (1) he is not working a third as hard on his campaign as Hillary (it shows) and (2) he has already implied he would delegate most of the work to Pence and others, while keeping the prestige for himself.  One the whole its just another trophy for him, and not work more than the effort he is giving it.  Trump makes sense to me.

On the other hand, Hillary plans to work at the job as hard as Obama did, maybe even harder.  She KNOWS the Congressional Republicans will try to block her every move.  She KNOWS there is going to be a recession on her first term.  She KNOWS she faces a better than even chance of going down as a hated president.  And yet she is willing to work like a dog for this shit sandwich of a job and then buckle down and DO IT.  it makes no sense. Why is she doing this?

I can see why Bill made such an effort, he was young and had relatively little money (when they became president the Clintons were about as rich as we were at their age.)  They are not great money managers, they pay ridiculous tax rates (more than twice what a Romney pays) which proves they don't *think* like rich people, but rather like the politicians they are. Nevertheless they have more money than could ever spend and won't ever need any more for personal reasons.  I believe Obama plans to take the same path and soon he and Michelle will be buried in cash. 

But Bill and Hill are loaded.  Money is no longer any motivation so why is she doing this?  I understood why Bush and McCain and Romney ran.  But what personal motivation Hillary could have is hard to see.

Ask yourself why an Olympian trains for years to compete for medals that have limited value after they are obtained.  Is it prestige or a personal challenge or even a poke-in-the-eye to some unknown and unseen enemy?  I'm sure there are lots of reasons, but only a very few compete to elevate their sport or for some other unselfish and noble reason. 

So why is Hillary in the POTUS race so doggedly?  I'm not a psychologist, but I'll bet it includes (or may consist entirely of) the opportunity to defeat her enemies.  Where we disagree is on her lack of self awareness and even her sense of destiny.  I don't see her as insightful at all.  She's certainly dogged and more than adequately scrappy, but I don't see her as a visionary in any sense.  As a visionary, she's the female GHWB.  On score settling, GWB.

Sorry, but I'm just not a fan.  I find her off-putting in the extreme.

[David Horn]

(08-17-2016, 09:24 PM)playwrite Wrote:

(08-17-2016, 02:52 PM)David Horn Wrote: No, we agree 100% here.  Hillary wants the position and the prestige that goes with it.  I'm less convinced she actually wants to accomplish all that much though.  Most of her stated goals falls solidly in the small-ball range.  Since Presidents only get a portion of the things they request.  I see a disappointing next 4 years, maybe less inspiring than the post-2010 Obama experience ... setting up the critical 2020 election for the not-Dems

Making the SCOTUS Progressive for several decades is not small ball, it's about as big a thing possible on the domestic policy side.

Also, as I said earlier, low expectations for her, and Clinton not having Obama's 1st term naivety concerning the GOP, positions her to perhaps get more actually done than people now believe possible.  Stay tune.

As I noted in the old forum, I'll hold my nose and vote for Hillary to save the SCOTUS if nothing else.  It's entirely possible that the 2020 blowback will obviate any other gains, but the SCOTUS has tilted right for far too long to ignore this opportunity.  Then again, if it was anyone but Trump, I might play the long game ... but it's not.

[playwrite]

(08-18-2016, 09:54 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-17-2016, 09:24 PM)playwrite Wrote:

(08-17-2016, 02:52 PM)David Horn Wrote: No, we agree 100% here.  Hillary wants the position and the prestige that goes with it.  I'm less convinced she actually wants to accomplish all that much though.  Most of her stated goals falls solidly in the small-ball range.  Since Presidents only get a portion of the things they request.  I see a disappointing next 4 years, maybe less inspiring than the post-2010 Obama experience ... setting up the critical 2020 election for the not-Dems

Making the SCOTUS Progressive for several decades is not small ball, it's about as big a thing possible on the domestic policy side.

Also, as I said earlier, low expectations for her, and Clinton not having Obama's 1st term naivety concerning the GOP, positions her to perhaps get more actually done than people now believe possible.  Stay tune.

As I noted in the old forum, I'll hold my nose and vote for Hillary to save the SCOTUS if nothing else.  It's entirely possible that the 2020 blowback will obviate any other gains, but the SCOTUS has tilted right for far too long to ignore this opportunity.  Then again, if it was anyone but Trump, I might play the long game ... but it's not.

By 2020, the older White male cohort will be down another 2 percentage points of the electorate (not even adding in the increasing urban/rural vote ratio) means it will take a lot to see a Rightee in the WH.  That basic demographic trend put Obama in the WH in 2008; by 2020, the Obama coalition will be 6 points bigger and the oppo 6 pts smaller - that's a 12 point total spreads! What possibly could overcome that???

  It's over.

[pbrower2a]

(08-16-2016, 04:35 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-15-2016, 05:08 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-12-2016, 08:30 AM)David Horn Wrote: Hillary is very talented but also highly flawed.  She always sees herself under siege...

Are you suggesting she is not?  Presideint Obama is not a Clinton.  He is as gifted a pol as Bill--yet he is far more hated on the Right than Bill was. It is likely Hillary will be even more hated than Obama was.  Do you deny this?

Do you beleive that there exists an uppity Democrat* who would NOT be under siege by the right?

*Uppity means having the unmitigated gall to believe that someone like them deserves to be president--and then winning.

I don't disagree that, in what may be the final days of their party's existence, the entire GOP roster will do anything and everything to make the not-GOP POTUS squirm.  It's about all they have left.  In his time, FDR got the same treatment.  The difference between then and now is how the response was handled.  FDR stood his ground, and gave better than he got.  I don't see Hillary in that role, because it's not in her nature.  Worse, this is not something that can be handed to surrogates, so it will not get done. 

If she had any vision of where she is going and how she might get there, she should be moving her message away from all-Hillary-all-the-time to a unity message with the down-ballot Democrats.  She should hang Trump on the entire party and call for a wholesale replacement of Congressional GOPpers with people who will move the country forward, rather than sink in a mire of incompetence.  She should encourage others to do likewise ... but she's not.

There's actually a possibility that Pat Toomey might get reelected, yet Hillary is only focusing on herself in PA.  And Toomey is only one of several solid targets she's ignoring.  She may pay a high price for that starting in January 2017.  If the Senate remains in GOP hands, they'll burn the place down before they lift a finger to help her in any way, then they will put the blame on her -- probably with a modicum of success.

Senator Toomey has slipped behind his opponent in the polls. His approval ratings had been poor all year, and the dynamics that got him elected just barely in a Republican wave election (2010) do not now apply. He is on the same ticket as the most unpopular Republican nominee for President since Barry Goldwater, and he must distinguish himself. Doing so, he must display the Far Right ideology that he could keep concealed during the 2010 election while lying low in the Senate since elected to it.

Pennsylvanians may elect an extremist in a statewide election -- once. Maybe it is excessive to hold that he believes, like the Club of Growth in which he was a leader, that no human suffering is in excess if it churns, enforces, or enhances a profit or executive compensation. He cannot present himself as a moderate in one of the most consistently-moderate states of the Union.

The 2016 election is beginning to show signs of being a Democratic wave election. Wave elections elect politicians who can achieve office only in such years. In a reverse wave they get ousted because they were poor matches for their bailiwicks or they were simply substandard pols.

To hold the Senate, Republicans must counteract the tendencies toward a Democratic wave, which means that it must get Senator Toomey re-elected. The Republicans had little chance of gaining any seat except that of the retiring Senator Harry Reid.... and that is close in a state that ordinarily breaks late to the advantage of Democrats in recent elections. Republicans knew all along that Senators Kirk (IL) and Johnson (WI) were going down at the beginning of the year.

Pat Toomey is close to the tipping point for control of the Senate. Considering how vulnerable many incumbent Republican Senators are, Republicans would need a 2010-like or 2014-like wave in their favor to hold onto the Senate. Such will not happen this time.