Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

Sundays Are Super Serious, so I'm going to take them over and host a new discussion every week~ you are all welcome in advance for all the thanks I know I will receive.

The US has decided that they will exclusively let you decide the next President, for whatever reason, but you have to back your candidate up and prove their worth. Post a quick summary of their recent voting history and established record to show how they'd be better than Bush or Clinton. They don't have to have officially announced but at least pick someone who's seriously considering.

My current pick, officially unannounced, is GOP Scott Walker. He is the current Governor of Wisconsin. Let me give you some recent economic numbers about Wisconsin (all of these numbers come from a report compiled by the National Review).

State Deficit 2011 v. State Surplus 2014: -$3,600,000,000 v. +$900,000,000
State Unemployment Rate Jan 2011 v. Sep 2014: 7.7% v. 5.5%
Per Capita Income 2011 v. 2014: $38,755 v. $43,149

Chief Executive Best States For Doing Business Survey Rank 2011 v. 2014: 41st v. 14th

Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce Survey: Employers Who Think Wisconsin is on the Right Track 2011 v. 2014: 9% v. 95%

Wisconsin Business Export total 2014: $23.43 billion in goods worldwide, 1.4% increase from 2013, 18.3% increase since 2010.

Signed a bill that requires an ultrasound to be done 24 hours prior to an abortion but prohibits requiring a patient to view the images or listen to the fetal heartbeat and requires the DHS compile and distribute a list of facilities that provide ultrasounds at no cost.

Signed a bill establishing a program that allows unemployment beneficiaries to receive a stipend that assists with the cost of specialized occupational training to help them get back in the workforce.

Recent (2015) actions: partnered with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife to reintroduce a population of elk in Wisconsin; signed Freedom to Work legislation prohibiting employers from requiring employees join or pay a union; renewed his two year undergraduate tuition freeze for another two years; continues to meet with UK manufacturers to push investment and growth in Wisconsin, hosted ~100 executives at a networking event to promote development in Wisconsin.

I'm with Mr. Black on this one.

Bernie Sanders, why?
http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Bernie_Sanders.htm

There really isn't anything i can disagree with him on.

All the Republicans are against same-sex marriage, pro war, and highly religious, and Clinton seems to not have opinions or stances on anything.
Bernie Sanders is logically the only person to vote for.

I too will go for Sanders, but his chances aren't good which is a shame. I maybe Democrat, but if I was a Republican, I would go for Rand Paul. I like this idea for a weekly topic, Lisa.

Bernie Sanders is literally out of his mind. He's 73 and way beyond that line of giving a fuck that old people gradually lose sight of as they age. He's also a global warming lunatic who is currently trying to set the standard for air quality so high, most of our National Parks would not pass. For his ecological voting history alone I would not let Bernie Sanders anywhere near the Presidency.

Scott Walker is not anti-gay, has publicly taken pro-LGBT stances on anti-discrimination laws, has said numerous times that he thinks gay rights are a generational issue that will not be an issue for much longer, and declared the matter "over" in his state after the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down a gay marriage ban.

The problem with being the one GOP candidate with socially liberal opinion is that when he's campaigning for the nomination, he can't be as open or up front about those positions or his willingness to compromise. The people who turn out to vote for the nominee, the old dying Christian fundamentalists, would rather see Jeb or Rubio and their staunchly anti-gay/anti-abortion stances in the WH. He, and the rest of us, knows campaigning on moderacy is going to see him lose regardless. If he could secure the GOP nomination, though, then he wouldn't have to worry about the dying fundamentalist vote, he could run the much more socially moderate campaign that is absolutely necessary to defeat Hillary.

His social policy is the reason he doesn't have as much support on the right as Jeb, though he does have considerably more support than most other candidates.

Look forward to next Sunday, chowz, I'm thinking we take a needed break from party politics and discuss the myth of anthropogenic global warming.

Some myth…

http://climate.nasa.gov/

I mean I don't want to give too much away in advance but

that's temp in F over 20,000 years where 0 degrees = the 1960-1990 global average.

edit because I think you're confused~ anthropogenic global warming means humans are 100% the cause of the global temperature increase.

Please remain on-topic. This is not a climate change thread.

I slowly resent government as a whole a little more each day, but a Sanders/(Paul or Walker) race would probably leave us the least screwed. Honestly, Jeb and Hillary shouldn't be allowed to run.

Paul has even less conservative support than Walker. :/ The only way Bush/Clinton is not going to happen is with a surge in youth voter turnout, and Hillary is trying her best to get them on her side anyway. We've got a gap between the 20-40yr old moderates who make up the average opinion on this country and the 60yr + extremists with no sense of compromise who fund and rule the government. Which is, again, only allowed to happen because 80%of them turn up to vote and barely 30% of 18-25yr olds bother (and that's presidential elections, so you can see why moderates aren't elected to Congress and state positions more often).

I don't know shit about modern US politics and all of its extensive details along with bios of all the politicians (even though I should because I'll be voting in 2 years and I wish to be politically active) but I know for a fact that I'll pick the politician that's the least batshit insane. So far there's been no actually good contenders from what I've heard so I'll just pick the one that is least likely to destroy everything, and from my extremely limited knowledge that would be Rand Paul at the moment. Usually I'd do Dem but Hilary is just nope.

My opinion is pretty worthless though because I'm not caught up at all. I usually don't like taking positions on subjects in which I am lacking knowledge but this is just supposed to be a casual thread so I'll just post my poorly informed opinion anyway. I don't feel very strongly about it as a result of it being poorly informed.

If it does come down to Jeb and Hilary I would probably just write in Ron Paul.

If it comes down to Jeb and Hillary I'll be launching a mostly e-campaign to write in Walker, I'm already sitting on a URL just in case. I have great political connections and a lot of friends in DC with great connections of their own, we'll be able to get something going if we have to. Enough people are so adamantly against another Bush/Clinton Presidency that we might actually be able to cause a bit of a political scene, us normies down here just trying to pay our bills on time.

I want bernie sanders. He's socialist and does not like the rich, so that's nice. Also if that happens /r/circlejerk will have a field day.

I guess this is sort of off topic but Rand Paul has been kinda-sorta filibustering the Senate for about seven hours now. The link is live vid. #StandWithRand is trending so I guess it's at least relevant to this website.

Yeah I've heard of Bernie, he's a Dem-Socialist. Now he's probably my favorite option. I'm not full socialist personally but I see him as better than the rest and since he's running under Dem he can't go full socialist anyways, just use some of their ideologies which can be good.

Ya know, I'm not a huge fan of Rand Paul or filibustering but I'm with him 100% on this.

That's an unsourced picture anyone could have made in photoshop.

>Implying Hillary won't just get defeated by some other random candidate like in 2008
>Implying Jeb won't get slaughtered in the primaries as well

Mark my words. Hillary can be defeated. Any Republican can take on Jeb. This election will just be 08' on repeat.

It's a small slice of a graph spanning 4 billion years that will be posted in its entirety on Sunday in the thread made specifically for discussing such topics. :)

So… which random politician is it that's going to defeat her?

There are two Republicans who can take on Jeb, but as you can see he has a clear lead atm.

PPP (D) is Public Policy Polling, a company that only polls for Democrat and progressive organizations on a for-hire basis. Walker has consistently led the GOP nominees in PPP's polls, further evidence of his more liberal social policy and why classic conservatives are more inclined to stick with Jeb and Rubio.

I can look up old polls of Hillary beating opponents with Similar numbers as well in 2008.

I actually did by the way.
More Similar Numbers

I'm clueless on who could take her though. The same thing people we're spouting 8 years ago with her being a frontrunner.

She was only ahead in the 2008 polls until Obama officially announced his candidacy, which was on 02/10.

This time there's no black Pres hype to block her.

polls don't matter until the debates start. Right now its just a popularity contest.

….the polls decide who's allowed to participate in the debates. Only the top ten averaged from the five largest national polls will take the stage. These candidates, even those who haven't announced officially, have been campaigning since January to place well in the polls.

I forgot to defend my candidate choice. I will support Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota.

She has a great track record and has worked with numerous Republicans to get bipartisan legislation passed. She's also a rising star in the Democratic Party as well. She was also my #2 choice to beat Hillary, next was Warren.

For me, it's either Bernie sanders or Ben Carson.

I actually kind of laugh to myself every time Ben Carson comes in higher than Rand Paul on the polls.

Is anyone here explicitly opposed to Rubio getting on the Republican ticket (whether as Pres or VP)? Gleaming his On The Issues page gives me the impression he's the most mainstream, non-committal, "tow-the-line" Republican. The only interesting thing about his policies is his ardent anti-Castro streak, which I think is contrary to American interests (it's about time we improve relations so we can better influence the regime while reaping a profit in trade to boot).

Despite his plainness he has sizable groups of supporters and detractors. I don't get it, especially when there are much more interesting candidates (and Scott Walker is not one of those interesting candidates, in my humble opinion). So I guess my question is what's so great/terrible about Rubio?

Also, this. (Edit: image was too big so I linked instead.)

I'm voting for Cobra Commander!

>tfw Thomas Sowell will never run for president and is probably too old anyway
Why even vote? I'd vote for him in a heartbeat.

If Rand Paul's still in the running when the Michigan primary rolls around, I'll be voting for him. He's pretty much the only Republican who isn't itching at the chance to invade Syria and, unlike Barack "there'll be another terrorist attack if we don't pass it" Obama, he actually opposes the NSA. He's not perfect, but is the best option out there in my book.

If it ends up Bush III vs Clinton II I honestly might vote 3rd party. If the Reps are so stupid as to go that route, I don't care if SCOTUS will tip liberal, they don't deserve my vote.

Arcane said:

So I guess my question is what’s so great/terrible about Rubio?

Minority vote. He's a classic VP candidate (suck in those extra votes) and I'd honestly be shocked if he isn't asked to be the running mate. The anti-Castro thing could be very interesting since Florida is one of the big battleground states and the largest home to Cubans. If Miami-Dade turns red, it would likely tip Florida and its 29 delegates red as well. It's pretty unlikely, but always something to consider.

I also don't mind him as VP but no way on the main ticket. "Gleaming over OnTheIssues" is not really that great a showcase of fifteen years of key federal office roles. He has the lowest attendance rate of any Senate member over four years, for one. He doesn't support stem cell research at all, where Walker supports adult stem cell research. Rubio's also anti-federal LGBT laws, what he says and what he does about education are complete opposites, and his environmental policy is really not okay by me.

What are your qualms with Walker?

Thomas Sowell

The guy who expressed anger over college students volunteering at homeless shelters because poor people already have it easy and we need to force them to find work by withdrawing the last strand of compassion that society had for them. A Sowell ticket would get destroyed by any opponent with even the slightest populist sensibility (Mike Huckabee, anyone?), and thank goodness too.

Even then, I still wouldn't mind seeing such a thing happen, just for the debates. Throw in someone like Sanders or Robert Reich and the US might finally get some comprehensive dialogue over the economy.

@xTSGx: A complication to consider is the fact that VPs often serve to win over states that are otherwise up for grabs; eg JFK and LBJ hated one another on every conceivable level (Kennedy confided to his wife that he ran for president to deny the office to Johnson), but Texas was up for grabs. Kennedy was forced to pick Johnson to win Texas (and in case anyone is wondering, JFK-Nixon was one of three closest races in American history up to that point, and Kennedy would have certainly lost if he had lost Texas). I'm assuming Bush will get the nomination, but if he chooses Rubio then the Republicans will lose a chance to win over an otherwise undecided state. So considering strategy, it's a disadvantage to stuff the ticket with two guys from the same state; we'll see how things play out and how close the race becomes.

@lisalombs: To use the same example above, Kennedy had one of the poorest attendance rates of any senator (one of the reasons Johnson hated him, as Johnson could never use the treatment on the perpetually absent, weak-looking Kennedy), but no one really cared during the '60 election. And as for Rubio, aren't conservatives in favor of states deciding LGBT law? You might personally dislike his policies, but I think most conservatives/Republicans advocate leaving it to the states to decide. Same with his policies on the environment and stem cells; you and I might dislike them, but his policies are right in line with typical conservative thinking (hence I refer to him as a bland candidate). And as for Walker, all I see is a shill for big business; he was handpicked by Michael Grebe and the Bradley Foundation (check out this front-page NYT article where Grebe admits to plucking Walker out of obscurity to make him the face of their agenda) and is being groomed by the Koch brothers. In terms of viability, I put Rubio and Walker on the same level (the only difference being that Walker has like a bajillion dollars from backers while Rubio is coasting on his name for now). I'm not opposed to Walker (yet), but I don't like him at face value.

@Particale Mare: I personally think the only redeemable part of the primaries is the chance at shaping the political dialogue, so I totally agree that giving candidates like Sanders the chance to be heard on a national level (even when they have a 0% shot at winning) is good. The first step in turning America towards the benefits of the left (ie Scandinavian style health care, European quality in public education, etc) is getting rid of the normative backlash many Americans in prior generations have to socialism, welfare state, strong progressive taxes, etc. I hope some of these no-shot candidates at least raise our collective awareness a little bit.

Edit: Seems I can never get the textile formatting right on my first try.

{ You might personally dislike his policies, but I think most conservatives/Republicans advocate leaving it to the states to decide. }

I don't care what the traditional party lines are. There are a lot of things that should be handled under federal law, having 50 different versions of one law means 50x as much paperwork and redundancy for anyone who ever wants to move out of the state they currently live in. Matters of basic rights and immigration/etc were never meant to be dealt with on the State level.

{ he was handpicked by Michael Grebe and the Bradley Foundation and is being groomed by the Koch brothers. }

Which has had… what effect on his track record? He's the only politician running with a positive economic track record, and the only one who's implemented realistic environmental policy in his state. That "shill for big business" increased Wisconsin's exports nearly 20% and raised the average household income roughly $5k. Nobody else has that kind of success behind them, so clearly his deals with big business that promote Wisconsin development worked out pretty well for its people.