[onoway]

Was reading a couple of forums elsewhere and the drift of them was definitely " a pox on both their houses" and a recurring suggestion to boycott the election. If so, the Trump might just slither in. I hear that there are several outside party candidates, since so many people seem so distressed about either of the main offerings, why is nothing at all being heard about the outsiders in the running?

[hrothgar]

onoway, on 2016-October-10, 22:06, said:

I hear that there are several outside party candidates, since so many people seem so distressed about either of the main offerings, why is nothing at all being heard about the outsiders in the running?

Neither Stein nor Johnson understands the distinction between getting elected and governing.
As such, they are vanity candidates rather than a serious alternative to Clinton / Trump.

If / when the Libertarians and the Greens are able to start winning local elections, show that they can create a governing coalition, and demonstrate that their policies are effective; that's when their candidates will start being treated as legitimate both by the press and by the populace at large. (And oh, by the way, it will help a lot if theey stop nominating whackadoodles like Johnson and Stein)

[helene_t]

kenberg, on 2016-October-10, 16:09, said:

For many reasons, Trump is done. But we do polls on everything it seems, and I would like to know how Trump scores with parents of teens or pre-teens. I am thinking the answer might be very bad for Trump.

I think he scores quite well with kids. The older you get, the more the black-and-white thinking fades into shades of grey. Sanders scores well with young people also. I was an extremist when I was young, as were most of my peers. Not saying that Sanders is an extremist, but he does sound like one.

One of my first jobs was for a psychometric company. We actually used age calibration for certain outcomes, because if the scale is 0-10 then teens tend to use the entire scale the same way that pensioners use the 3-7 range.

[Al_U_Card]

What started this latest round of one-upsmanship? Why release those tapes of DT's candid comments? Hillary surely knew that it would affect the debate, divert attention and... divert it from what exactly? It wouldn't have anything to do with Friday's wikileaks release of Podesta's (her campaign manager) emails containing transcripts of Hillary's private speeches to bankers (a couple of years ago and not 11 years ago like DT) about her globalizing agenda, would it?

Hillary repudiated that agenda to entice Bernie's supporters to vote for her. But she never wanted to release transcripts of those meetings. Part of the wikileak included tactics to disparage Rep candidates....2 years ago! List included Trump. What a surprise...NOT.

[kenberg]

Al_U_Card, on 2016-October-11, 05:40, said:

What started this latest round of one-upsmanship? Why release those tapes of DT's candid comments? Hillary surely knew that it would affect the debate, divert attention and... divert it from what exactly? It wouldn't have anything to do with Friday's wikileaks release of Podesta's (her campaign manager) emails containing transcripts of Hillary's private speeches to bankers (a couple of years ago and not 11 years ago like DT) about her globalizing agenda, would it?

Hillary repudiated that agenda to entice Bernie's supporters to vote for her. But she never wanted to release transcripts of those meetings. Part of the wikileak included tactics to disparage Rep candidates....2 years ago! List included Trump. What a surprise...NOT.

Am I reading this right? Wikileaks released stuff about her speeches, the Washington Post released the Trump tapes. You ask:
" It wouldn't have anything to do with Friday's wikileaks release of Podesta's (her campaign manager) emails containing transcripts of Hillary's private speeches to bankers (a couple of years ago and not 11 years ago like DT) about her globalizing agenda, would it?"

You are thinking that after the Wikileaks, the editors at the Post decided to publish previously unreleased tapes of Trump in direct response? You are seeing a causal chain here?

If this is the best counter punch the Trumpies have, they are in deep stuff. And, of course, they are.

[hrothgar]

Al_U_Card, on 2016-October-11, 05:40, said:

Part of the wikileak included tactics to disparage Rep candidates....2 years ago! List included Trump. What a surprise...NOT.

Hillary is running a competent political campaign.
The horror. The horror!

FWIW, if the Clinton Campaign did have something to do with the timing of the leak (and I hope that they did)

1. I think that it demonstrates competence
2. I think that the timing had a lot more to do with a concerted attempt to crush Trump coincident with the second debate

The following has a decent enough discussion of the timing surrounding the leaks

http://money.cnn.com...tape/index.html

[Zelandakh]

Aberlour10, on 2016-October-10, 02:51, said:

No matter who wins the election, this undignified spectacle over the months causes considerable damage to the image of the land which claims worldwide leadership.

I think that having a land claim worldwide leadership does more harm to its image than everything else put together. Most Presidents are careful not to go so far as to claim any such leadership while playing to the assumptions of those at home that that leadership is obvious.

cherdano, on 2016-October-10, 08:08, said:

What do you think she should have said?

My answers from the night:

HC: His ability to put on a good show, then pivot to lies and deception.
DT: Her loyalty in standing by her husband, followed by dredging through the various claims made against him and pivoting to her wider judgement.

There are better answers available with time to prepare but the beauty of such questions is precisely that they usually force the candidate to think on their feet slightly. That neither candidate was really able to come up with any sort of classic feint and pivot answer probably speaks volumes about their capabilities without the teams behind them telling them what to do and say.

[PassedOut]

Interesting piece about Hillary in the NYT Magazine: ‘I’m the Last Thing Standing Between You and the Apocalypse’

Quote

When I spoke to her over the Fourth of July weekend in 2015 in New Hampshire, Clinton had clearly been thinking about the impact of new technology on human development and how people communicate. We were talking about mental health and substance abuse, two issues that a lot of voters in New Hampshire were raising with her. She described a meeting with a group that had developed online mental-health programs. One woman predicted to her that a big challenge in mental health over the coming years would be “how to undo the damage that the internet has caused young people.”

It’s striking to me now that Clinton’s main interest in these new media technologies was not so much as a political tool but as a policy concern for the citizenry. Clinton described “the insidious, pernicious comparisons” that online communities can foster in young people, and the temptation to “put out an identity online before it’s ever formed” in real life. Thinking about this exchange 14 months later, after what feels like a generation’s worth of lines crossed and taboos shattered, her concern seems strangely prescient.

Trump, of course, both shares and feeds his audience’s addiction to stimuli and entertainment. Early in the campaign, during the Republican primaries, he would pretty much say yes to anyone who wanted to put him on TV or in a magazine. He was indefatigable in reaching out to reporters, lobbying for coverage. He can be undeniably fun and, to a point, seductive. My first encounter with Trump, more than a year ago, came in an unsolicited note that said simply, “Mark, It’s Time for a Cover!”

Clinton, on the other hand, proceeds with immense caution. When we first spoke last July, she agreed to our meeting on the maddening proposition that we do it off the record. I went along, reluctantly, as it was my only entree (she agreed later to put parts of it on the record). Her hesitancy to give interviews and allow media access has barely subsided over time. When I asked Robby Mook, Clinton’s 36-year-old campaign manager, how his candidate had adapted to the insane rules of engagement that this campaign has “normalized” (to use a 2016 buzzword), he essentially said that she hadn’t. “Hillary approaches this campaign through the portal of wanting to fix problems,” Mook told me. “And so politics for her is, first and foremost, not an exercise in communicating to the masses. It’s about finding the right solution and then going after it.”

Clinton is, in other words, the anti-Trump. She is not a political novelty, nor is she especially entertaining as a media personality or in front of big groups. She and her campaign know this and have been smart about not pretending otherwise. Trump’s big shadow and outrage machine have even allowed her to become slightly and perhaps blissfully lost; to fade, if not into obscurity, at least into a background that cuts the glare of the scrutiny to which she has been so averse. In a sense, she is daring voters to study her positions, listen to her answers and not look to her for entertainment or emotional impact. In 2016, that can seem almost risky.

“I’ve laid out all of these policies, and look, people kind of made fun of it, because ‘Oh, there she goes with another policy,’ ” Clinton told me. “I’m trying to run a campaign that presents an alternative case.” It’s telling that a candidate with the name recognition, résumé and baggage of Hillary Clinton is nonetheless left to present her campaign as an “alternative case.”

“My husband and I laugh sometimes about the ‘Antiques Roadshow,’ ” Clinton told me, referring to the PBS show about antique appraisers that she watches devoutly. “Sometimes we feel like we are the antiques on a roadshow when it comes to politics.”

I hope Hillary wins despite her difficulties with communicating on television. But this has become a big problem. In particular, I think that future politicians will have to get a lot better at using mass media to promote the value of facts.

[PassedOut]

Zelandakh, on 2016-October-11, 07:13, said:

I think that having a land claim worldwide leadership does more harm to its image than everything else put together.

Agree 100%. I cringe whenever I hear claims like that.

[Al_U_Card]

Despite the fodder for comedians (of which there is much) candidates have no more to hide than before, there is just much less place to hide it. Instant and wide-spread exposure is the hallmark of the current (and future) political scene. Obama did the best with his handling of this emerging paradigm and is to commended for it. Hil and DT are not mastering the technique and we get to see the underbelly in all its detail.

Likely no better than those that came before, I think that the worst is yet to come...

[barmar]

PassedOut, on 2016-October-10, 15:13, said:

After mulling this over for awhile, I still don't see that "He's a good promoter" has a negative connotation. Trump is in fact a good promoter and promoting is a useful skill. I must be missing something here, but am not sure what.

Snake oil salesmen are "good promoters", and I think that's how such a response would likely be interpreted.

I think she did OK with the comment about his kids. Basically, she was saying that despite being a total a-hole in business and political arenas, he still managed to raise his children well. But it also appears that he didn't really have lots to do with this. From Vanity Fair's A SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION OF HOW DONALD TRUMP’S KIDS TURNED OUT (RELATIVELY) NORMAL

Quote

On some level, he did it by outsourcing the job. Trump and his first wife, Ivana, left their young children in the care of two Irish nannies and, for a time, their maternal grandparents, before sending the kids off to boarding school (Eric and Donald Jr. to the Hill School; Ivanka to Choate). “My father is a very hardworking guy, and that’s his focus in life, so I got a lot of the paternal attention that a boy wants and needs from my grandfather,” Donald Jr. told New York Magazine in 2004.

BTW, I assume if there were any blemishes in the nannies' immigration status, someone would already have brought that up -- other politicians have been brought down when it was discovered that they had undocumented immigrants working for them.

[kenberg]

A musical interlude about children

https://www.youtube....h?v=wBcpAaUHwNM


If the kids have a good life, we begin with a celebration and, if it fits in with beliefs, a prayer of thanks. Later, perhaps, we try to explain it.

[Winstonm]

It is amazing that Donald Trump has been able to turn this election into a reality t.v. show with viewers and networks waiting for the next outrage to top the last. It is a Kardashian campaign, a carnival freak show, an armless man shuffling cards with his feet.

Somehow, Hillary Clinton has to stay above this while sharing the same stage?

[andrei]

Reality show, indeed.
Media specialty after all.

Every time emails are leaked, new allegations surface.
Buckle up, there is more to come.

[Al_U_Card]

Both sides fight using what is available. The big difference is that DT's errors have not yet been in the political/national arena while Hil's malfeasance is more and more becoming available to scrutiny.

[kenberg]

andrei, on 2016-October-13, 08:26, said:

Reality show, indeed.
Media specialty after all.

Every time emails are leaked, new allegations surface.
Buckle up, there is more to come.

I have been thinking to check on just how early I can vote. I have always done so on "the voting day" but I am thinking that if I vote early then I can tell them all what they can do with whatever their latest astounding revelations are.

Perhaps a little more seriously, I have long felt that under no circumstance should a person ever pay the slightest bit of attention to anything that is said in the last couple of weeks. And I imagine that this time around there will be quite a bit that is said.

[Al_U_Card]

kenberg, on 2016-October-13, 15:36, said:

I have long felt that under no circumstance should a person ever pay the slightest bit of attention to anything that is said in the last couple of weeks.

Good thing that this has been out there for a while... so you could say that U.S. Democracy has been sold for cash?

[kenberg]

I don't really mean to ignore any posts, it's just that I think the campaign has become like one of those parties that's is over and has been over for a while, but for some reason the guests don't say goodnight and go home.

I will say that I think it is important for Trump to be thoroughly beaten. It is clear that he will be peddling his conspiracy theories. Jeff Bezos, Paul Ryan, conservative commentators such as George Will, a former Miss Universe (whose name I don't recall and don't plan to look up), women who don't like being grabbed even by stars, and God knows who else are all in cahoots to deny him the election that is rightfully his. Maybe we could start an "I am in the global conspiracy" list. I fervently hope we do not have to go through any hanging chads, now or ever. He needs to be solidly defeated. He needs to be gone.

Then we need to start some serious discussion of what is actually ahead for us.

But first things first.
Gone and emphatically, clearly, beyond question gone. It's important.

[ggwhiz]

kenberg, on 2016-October-14, 16:00, said:

Gone and emphatically, clearly, beyond question gone. It's important.

The more emphatically he is gone the more likely the GOP decides they have to actually govern no matter who is in the White House if their brand has any hope of getting the keys in the next few decades.

I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall when they post mortem this one.

[cherdano]

What a week it has been in US politics.

Trinidad, on 2016-October-07, 01:53, said:

FWIW, I don't believe that Trump is a real racist or "ethnicity-ist". I don't think he gives a BEEP.

I believe Trump is a media-ist and a populist. He knows that his potential voters are racist, so he will say racist things that his electorate thinks are funny or need to be said.

When I saw this post, I wanted to reply that I find this very plausible, but that I find his misogyny extremely genuine and authentic. A few hours later, I had read about the Billy Bush tape, and the post had become somewhat superfluous... (Not that I deserve much credit - I hadn't realised what a serial sexual predator he is.)