Obama was “scripted and calculating”, and it’s one of the reasons he won against Clinton in 2008. The unforced errors that sunk her then tended to be the unmanaged comments, such as the “landing under fire” gaffe.
In fact, all successful presidential candidates historically have been “scripted and calculating” - strategic planning and message management are basic skills for anyone playing politics at this level. Do you think Reagan wasn’t “scripted and calculating”? It was considered one of his strengths! GHW Bush, Bill Clinton - both “scripted and calculating”. Even Carter was “scripted and calculating”, although he wasn’t terribly good at it. Managing your message doesn’t mean that every word out of your mouth is a lie; it means you pick and choose what you say and when and to whom.
The question you should be asking yourself is how we as a country have reached a point where shouting out any ridiculous nonsense that occurs to someone off the top of their head is seen as a virtue in a race for a job involving complex geopolitical diplomacy. I’d also ask why you’re trying so hard to portray a fundamental requirement for the job as a liability and downplay someone who is, in a limited field, by far the least likely to embroil the US in a major diplomatic incident over some stupid remark, but I have a pretty good idea what the answer to that one is.
I’m not a Hillary fan and wish I had a better choice but Jeebus, the alternatives are so much worse.
Definitely. I’ll never claim that Kasich is one of the honest ones. In fact, a lot of his current persona is an act. Sanders is the only real guy left in the race. But Clinton is in a special category in that everything she says is calculated(except when talking about her personal ethics issues). With her fact checkers she should never be getting anything wrong. But telling the truth all the time isn’t a successful campaign strategy. Which is one reason for the success of Barack Obama in 2008 and Donald Trump today. Voters are sick of it. They haven’t yet figured out how to spot honest vs. dishonest candidates, but they know they don’t like obvious fakes.
There are degrees. All candidates use a script. But when necessary they can go off it and not look like fools. And some scripts are better than others. Obama beat Clinton by portraying her as an icon of the “old politics” while he was something newer and better. It was a better script with a better actor.
Okay. I took “Which is one of the reasons…” to be referring to the previous sentence about not telling the truth. Though I think his big win in '08 was more due to the disgust with Bush’s presidency than “old politics” in general, though that may have played a role. Hillary would likely have also crushed McCain, and possibly with the same high turnout (since she probably would have had Obama as her Veep candidate).
If by “old” you mean “Republican”, then yes. But he also ran a phenomenally shrewd ground game, which is why he prevailed against the candidate presumptive Clinton. Obama didn’t win by lying; he won by being very, very smart. Which is another example of fundamental requirements for the job being downplayed due to political bias.
The public is a better judge of who is best at pandering to their “common knowledge”, “gut”, “things everyone knows to be true”, and “stuff I just have a feeling about”. Of course most of those things are wrong. Except the few times when they aren’t, which is just enough validation most people need.
So if Clinton loses to not Trump(we don’t know who that is yet), then it will be because the public was misinformed about her basic honesty and integrity.
Or they don’t care. Or they disagree with her policies and positions on the issues they care about. Or they mindlessly vote Republican because that’s who they vote for.
Nah, as I pointed before this is the rare case were a very significant number of right wing media is against the Republican front runner. If (and that is a big if now) they manage to beat Trump the right wing media will be more sincere about how less of a huge cad the non Trump is.
He will be still a cad, but less so than Trump.
There will be lots more support for the non Trump in the general election, but I do think that if Trump is bumped there will be a lot of opposition from Trump supporters that will feel betrayed. So it will not be easy for the non Trump too.
Given that the majority of Americans thinks she’s dishonest, you’ll have to prove that she isn’t. Good luck with that. Any idiot can “win” on Politifact by just stating a lot of facts in speeches that your speechwriters give you. That is, if Politifact was worth gaming. Let’s let Politifact remain the valuable tool it is rather than trying to use their methodology for things it wasn’t meant to be used for and thus turn it into something politicians feel the need to game.
Isn’t this election pretty solid proof that the majority of Americans are complete morons? The kind who wouldn’t know bullshit even when it’s being shoveled onto their heads?
Seriously, if you have a problem with their methodology, then talk about that, but don’t pretend like truth is a matter of public opinion. If it was so easy to game the system, why aren’t other politicians padding their speeches with facts?
The truth of a particular statement is not usually a matter of opinion. How truthful a person is, however, is not so easy to measure and thus is a matter of opinion. It’s like trying to measure goodness. Either you believe in democracy and believe the public is qualified to make these judgments, or you don’t.
