2016 U.S Election Thread
 

I wanted to make an "official" election thread, since I didn't find one.

The election is still three years away, but this thread can be a place for predictions and discussion about the far away election.

My predictions:

Democratic Nomination: Hillary is a shoo in for this position. Electing the first female president is too big a chance for Democrats to pass up.

Republican Nomination: I would love to see Rand Paul get the nomination, but he still isn't well like by many of the social conservative wing of the GOP.

Ted Cruz is more radical, but with the GOP changing their stances on things on illegal immigration, I can't see them nominating him.

Chris Christie is the most likely choice. He's their only chance for appealing to the moderate voting base, as much as I don't like him.

Out of all of that, I believe Hillary will become our next president. Whether or not she can stay in office till 2024 remains to be seen, but I do believe we'll have a Democrat in office till at least 2020.

Most media outlets will be on Hillary's side, while Fox News will be the lone conservative network on the Republican candidate's side.

As for Libertarians like me, the '16 election will be a fun show to watch, but ultimately my vote won't count. At least I'll get to watch the candidates make fools out of themselves, and that's worth something.

Chris Christie would be my favourite among GOP candidates, but I don't really know much of politicians apart from the ones that make the news which are commonly (and unfortunately so) controversial figures. That being said, Sarah Palin for president 2016! Hopefully by the end of her inevitable second term as the first Palinist party president (a party that is sure to spread like wildfire to subsequent presidents), the 22nd Ammendment (along with the rest of that pesky constitution) will be repealed.

As far as Hillary goes, she's decent, but I'd prefer Christie if it were between those two if I was interested in voting for a candidate in one of the two main parties. I will probably end up voting Libertarian again, or I could add a write in candidate that I particularly like. I know the minority party vote holds little relevance in the current state of American voting with the Electoral College and the winner-takes-all system that most states adhere to, given that I live in California, a solidified vote for the Democratic candidate (one reason why I think the winner takes all system should be avoided, given that it diminishes the voice of those in the high ranking liberal or conservative states such as Texas or California). However, the view that I take to the situation is that I'd rather have my representational voice heard through the minority. I believe that if everyone chooses between the lesser of two evils (something that we all must resort to in many situations), how many opinions would go on unheard for what becomes the silent majority whilst the evil perpetuates?

Also, in the media, political focus varies between several politicians, so who knows of what is to come in the three years to come? Surely candidates on the fringe, the more moderate region, and other political figures will throw their hat in the ring given the state of the media. There is also the possibility of (supposed) scandals among who may seem like the obvious candidates today. Three years is a long time in the world of politics.

Belinda Carlisle

In voting for Hilary because i want all my rights and privileges taken away since I am far to stupid to have them. Also I make far to much money than I need so I would like jobless drunks and drug addicts who make kids in their free time to take some of it off my hands.

hillary can blow me i hate her


i will never vote again


obama has destroyed a generation of young voters imo


i am disenfranchised

i amjaded


i will not vote again

Maybe like mid 90's Hilary. MAYBE

Probably won't vote either. Didn't vote last time. Seems like a lost cause. I hate the way politics work in this country. It's like a god damn reality tv show or something.

Maybe I'll lend my support to a decent 3rd party but the cynic in me feels that is basically the same as not voting.

I would consider one of the old "Rockefeller Republicans" along the lines of Frank Church or Tom McCall or Lowell Weicker, the liberal republicans that utterly disappeared when Reagan got in office. But the GOP is so lockstep with the wacko religious right IMO that no one can get a nomination without declaring loyalty to the uber-right. That takes the decision out of the process for me, under no circumstances will I vote for prayer in school or teaching creationism in school or overturning Roe V Wade.

Honestly anyone who thinks any candidate from a major party Rep/Dem is going to make any difference and really change anything for the better in this coutry is crazy. Like last election I dont think who wins really matters. This country needs a lifestyle change not a left or right drone candidate.

I think it can make a monumental immediate and extraordinary difference...for the worse. As for better, eh, I think it can happen but v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y

I agree with you. The system needs a change. You might as well not vote because voting on a 3rd party is basically just throwing away your vote. I'm only going to vote because I'm going to be voting for the people on the ballot that are local and that I actually know in depth.

I don't believe people actually think that. It is just the way the system is set up and they are just going along with what they always know.

I feel bad for all the young voters that got all caught up in the "hype and change" thing, who are now disenfranchised because for the first time in their life, they became engaged with more than their own bubble and were sorely disappointed.
I can see there being a lot less turn-out in 2016 because of this.
On the other hand, Democrats do like to have their gimmicks. Personally, I wouldn't vote for a female president JUST because she's female, although I could see a lot of folks doing that because "hey, social progress!". I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to convince the young population to join forces against the "war on women" and toppling the evil Republicans who want dirty air and dirty water and old people to have to eat cat food to survive...

I think young voters should hold their heads high and be positive. Don't worry. Politicians will think of a way to use you for their own purposes, and you'll be walking to that booth under whatever pretense, with a smile on your face and bounce in your step. Ready to do your part in the next big step to nowhere.

I just think it shows you how stupid your average voter is. I mean running on a campaign of "Change" in a bad economy is pretty much a failsafe way of getting free votes. I mean who is going to say no to that. Obama had pretty much every black person I know in the bag for the obvious reason of being black himself. Honestly it disgusts me how shallow and narrow minded/misinformed your average voter is. It ALMOST makes me thank the electoral college.

Thank the electoral college for what exactly?

The electoral college is a huge part of the problem and what needs to be changed.

I didn't vote for Obama with both elections. I just knew he would take my state so it was no point in voting for him. Actually I think I voted Republican in 2008 for ****s and giggles. I knew a Repub wouldn't take NY.

^I agree, the electoral college just makes the situation worse. It's bad enough that anyone who doesn't want to vote one of the major parties basically has no influence, but the electoral college makes it so that in addition to this, anyone living in a state with a clear majority has no influence, aside from those who support the party in power.

I also agree that voters are uninformed, I think that's basically a reflection of our culture in general. I think it probably has something to do with us moving from a print based culture to a TV and Web based culture. The media is making the appeal-to-the-lowest-common-denominator strategy the most successful one for procuring public support.



Politicians basically know how to utilize this strategy to win power through the image they project more so than through having clear and well thought out ideas on how to approach issues.

They're also more interested in upholding their party's image than they are in working toward any sort of pragmatic progress. Look at all of the childish drama that has been surrounding the budget/deficit issue for the past few years.

ya look at other countries with more than 2 maor parties


its all a collusion thing where repubs and democrats have different ideas but agree on keepin their interests atop everything else so theres no real option. they are the only ones who want the system that we currently have and also the ones in power of controlling it so it will never change. i have voted in the past base don social issues cause i dont trust anyone to actually fgo and do what they say they will as far as plans. maybe thats dumb but like i said im done voting. i will still make fun of candidates tho

Hillary Clinton will be the next president. Among the GOP, it will come down to Rand Paul and Chris Christie. Paul seems to me to be too much of an ideologue. Too hung up on political philosophies that he can't wait to start implementing whether they have any chance of working or not. He may not be that way but that is how he comes across and I think it scares people. That his name reminds one irrepressibly of Ayn Rand and her Objectivism doesn't help him. I think the country has had enough of ideologues when Bush let his administration be overrun by neocon idiots who said stupid s-hit like we won't have to regulate Wall Street because they'll police themselves and a lean, lightly-armed, stripped down army is the way to win wars.

Christie I actually like but, let's face it, his weight is a problem. I mean, this cat could VERY WELL die in office so you have to look VERY CAREFULLY at who his running mate is if he gets the nod. Chances are, he'll be a RW nutjob in an attempt to get enough support from both factions of the GOP (two different parties for all intents and purposes) to make them look semi-cohesive (which they are not). If Christie dies in office, this other guy will be president and we stand a very real chance of that happening. So I don't see Christie as a viable candidate.

I don't think either one can beat Hillary Clinton. I think even most people who normally wouldn't vote for her to save her from hell will vote for her because the GOP is just that bad.

It's not changing it for the better that concerns me. I do know for certain that a candidate can change things for the worse and that is FAR MORE important to me. When Bush II won, I knew a lot of people who were really angry. I kept asking, "I'm not happy about it but what ever really changes? How much can this guy change things?" Boy, did I eat those words. I realize now, a US president can lie through his teeth to the entire world and embroil it in a useless, illegal war that put us in debt to China and destabilized the Middle East and he can walk away from it scot-free and leave his successor to clean up his mess.

He can feed the world a toxic cake made from mortgages so fraudulent they ruined entire countries' economies including his own and never have to explain himself. I don't believe for a second that Al Gore, for all his faults, would ever have pulled anything like that. I don't believe any other president would have been stupid enough to pull that.

So while a president isn't likely to make things a whole lot better any time soon, he sure as hell can make them far worse super fast and that's more than enough to get me to get off my ass and vote.

The Electoral College is all sorts of wrong.

Although it's a step up from the system we have here. We don't even get to put in an indirect vote for the Prime Minister.

Well, that was certainly Obama's saving grace in 2012. We'll just have to see if the GOP can't get their **** together in the next 3 years. I think they actually do realize they need to at the very least work on their image.

What about Marco Rubio? He's got everything the Republican party needs for a re-branding: intelligent, articulate, young, and Hispanic.

Rubio has issues too, which the left will definitely capitalize on when it comes time for the ads. I mean, people went crazy over Rubio drinking water in an uncomfortable-looking way. We know where this is going.
Consumer-grade politics is on par with television shows now days. We're going to vote for whoever comes out with the best season promo. We just have to like the characters.

The sad thing is that when you watch C-SPAN and see Congress in action, it's basically just a more drawn out and boring version of consumer-grade politics.

If you feel like his weight is the only thing keeping him back. He is already losing weight and having those tummy tuck surgeries to help lose weight. I bet you in 2 years he will have dropped a load of that weight off. He already reaches across the aisle sometimes and is more of a moderate. I could see him being the one to run against Hilary.

the country is becomin more liberal the repubs would be smart to endorse someone who pushes the lib/conserv boundary farther left like christie does because a guy like perry or huckabee or a woman like bachman would have no chance agains hilary or whoever else the dems put out there

You have to remember that there are two republican parties that are ideologically opposed to one another--a house divided against itself. A candidate has to meet the approval of both factions and Rubio is not that person. A reasonably united republican party would probably nominate him but this is not a reasonably united republican party.

It depends on who his running mate is. If he is some RW nutjob, do you want to take that chance? I will bet the farm that the country will say no.

If hilary is elected im moving to africa and joining a wartribe.

Reminds me of when Ted Nugent said this at an NRA conference in 2012:

"Because I'll tell you this right now: If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. Why are you laughing? Do you think that's funny? That's not funny at all. I'm serious as a heart attack."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...ins-i-will-be/

Still alive, not in jail.

http://media.tumblr.com/28c3559ea5b1...e4t1qz4rgp.gif

No but he spends every waking second trying to convince the rest of America how awful they are.

This is captured on video here

dont always agree but ted nugent is awesome

The last thing the Republican party needs is another jerkoff from the East Coast. Christie is every bit as bad and worthless as Romney.

Burning Down's thoughts on politics are always amusing. Not for the reasons intended; largely because the typical tactic is to take a statement from a single person and applies it to the larger group. That this should take place just a few posts down from wherein people discuss the idiocy of mass politics just heightens the irony.

Wait, what? You know that quote is not my opinion, right? Rezz made a statement and it simply reminded me of that quote. I'm not using it to represent a large group of people, and Nugent didn't mean for it to be interpreted that way. It was a reflection on how he felt about Obama right at that moment.

Also, because I have different political views than you, you find that amusing? Or is it amusing because maybe you don't think I am smart enough to be discussing such things in the first place? That was kind of a vague statement, which I find amusing.

The media is really pushing Hillary at the moment, so this presidential race is already getting very entertaining. I also find it interesting that this race is being talked about a lot more compared to other races, considering we're still two and a half years away from election day.

**** her. Whatever her policies she's a career politician with little to no integrity just like all the rest. If Christie really does get the nod then I'll vote for him in a heartbeat. Regardless of his politics he's shown that he's actually willing to treat the "other side" as human beings and not the avatars of Satan. So long as the two parties are so ridiculously opposed then this country is an exercise in futility. We can't even pass a ****ing budget. A ****ing budget! How does that happen?

Sure different candidates might have different effects on the country, but then four or eight or however many years later the country will be sick of *insert party x* and turn to *insert party y* who will be so opposed to absolutely everything *insert party x* did that they spend most of their time trying to repeal or interfere with whatever the other did. So basically you just get a schizophrenic national policy that does nothing but run in circles around itself for the entertainment of the public while the two parties, which may as well be one party, pay for their underage hookers with our money.


Well, candidates have to start campaigning as early as possible now that corporations can spend as much money as possible on candidates. The money thrown at both candidates might end up cancelling each other out, but the sheer fact that they have to have their noses so far up their respective buyers' asses means that the corporations get to dictate to whoever happens to win.

/end rant

The party system is a joke, and politics have become more about party versus party rather than doing what is best for this country.

I mean I am literally sickened by how childish it all is. I honestly think most politicians don't even use their brains regarding the central issues in the nation, they just mindlessly agree with the general stance that their party takes.

The day the party system is abolished is the day America can be considered a great nation again.

Christie is a corrupt piece of shit though. I see that as a bit of a negative.

As opposed to...

Thumbs?

Christie hurt his chances with his most recent scandal of corruption coming to light. Sure other politician are corrupt also but they know how to run their ships and keep things under wraps for the most part. He's just trying to muscle his way through things like he's a Sopranos extra or something. I normally don't wish ill will on people but I hope he dies of a heart attack from trying to lose weight too quickly. When you fuck with so many people's lives for your own political backroom politics he is just like all the rest of them that are currently in congress.