Quinnipiac poll shows a tight race between Trump and Clinton in FL, OH, and PA. Anyone surprised?

[bengangmo]

@adaher

Given that a President’s primary job is to carry out the law, character can actually be more important than any other issue in some voters’ minds. The other issue, even if you want a President to take a more active role in setting policy, is competence and character and how they interact with the ability to do what you want. If you don’t know what you’re doing, having the “right” views on policy won’t help. Say you want to have universal health care, but the government’s IT policies are too outdated. A smart, competent President will want to address boring stuff like that before getting into the exciting stuff like health care. Or perhaps you’d like to do something about immigration but the bureaucracy doesn’t want to cooperate with you and employment protections make them impossible to fire as long as they are complying with the law. Then you have to do the boring bureaucratic reform agenda before you can do immigration.

Of course, I’ve just made an aweseome argument for Hillary Clinton, since Clinton is into the boring policy stuff. But some Presidents hate that, want to delegate it, and then act surprised when their policies don’t happen the way they want them to.

The point is that plans are probably the LEAST important thing to consider when voting for a President. If all Presidential candidates were brilliant people of high character and vast experience, then yeah, we could look at their plans and judge them by that. Since most Presidential candidates are of questionable character, probably couldn’t even name 5 of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights, and don’t even know what their own plans are half the time(staff comes up with the details for most candidates, with Sanders especially being exposed on that count), we have to take personal qualities into account as well.

I’d give you 3 to 1 odds that both Clinton and Obama can give you the Cliffs Notes version of all 10 ammendments.

[elucidator]

Ah, Australia. The Texas of the Pacific.

[GIGObuster]

@bengangmo

I’d give you 3 to 1 odds that both Clinton and Obama can give you the Cliffs Notes version of all 10 ammendments.

I can imagine Trump telling us that:

• Hey, the amendments are great! They made America great! Particularly the Eighteenth Amendment! I will expand on it…

[Finally a staff member has the guts to tell Trump about the amendment]

… I know, I know, it may be removed now but all law enforcement groups will gladly follow my orders, as I will be [del]king[/del] President! Of course I will make an exception with Trump Vodka, that will remain legal. -

[Commodore]

@GIGObuster

Sounds like if you are getting a lot of your talking points from Christopher Monckton, complete with the Nazi accusations directed to his opponents. In reality the previous Prime minister was just getting very bad advice and was relying on anti-science, on top of that (or related to that) he did cut education funding. His party had plenty of reasons to remove him from office.

What does Australian prime minister Tony Abbott really think about climate change? | Environment | The Guardian

Australian leader Tony Abbott ousted by Malcolm Turnbull after party vote | Australia news | The Guardian

I would say that he is just a puppet just playing the game, yes he is a moron who had no leadership ability but only a very cunning creep that played or acted as a conservative but in fact never was one at all.

I will have to look up that fellow Monckton and see what he is on about.

[asahi]

@adaher

Given that a President’s primary job is to carry out the law, character can actually be more important than any other issue in some voters’ minds. The other issue, even if you want a President to take a more active role in setting policy, is competence and character and how they interact with the ability to do what you want. If you don’t know what you’re doing, having the “right” views on policy won’t help. Say you want to have universal health care, but the government’s IT policies are too outdated. A smart, competent President will want to address boring stuff like that before getting into the exciting stuff like health care. Or perhaps you’d like to do something about immigration but the bureaucracy doesn’t want to cooperate with you and employment protections make them impossible to fire as long as they are complying with the law. Then you have to do the boring bureaucratic reform agenda before you can do immigration.

Of course, I’ve just made an aweseome argument for Hillary Clinton, since Clinton is into the boring policy stuff. But some Presidents hate that, want to delegate it, and then act surprised when their policies don’t happen the way they want them to.

The point is that plans are probably the LEAST important thing to consider when voting for a President. If all Presidential candidates were brilliant people of high character and vast experience, then yeah, we could look at their plans and judge them by that. Since most Presidential candidates are of questionable character, probably couldn’t even name 5 of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights, and don’t even know what their own plans are half the time(staff comes up with the details for most candidates, with Sanders especially being exposed on that count), we have to take personal qualities into account as well.

The problem with “character” is that different people have different interpretations of what it means. For a majority of republicans, “character” means agreeing with their fellow republicans and engaging in nasty name calling without apologies. “Character” in the republican party is a very superficial thing. That’s why they’re stuck with a party nominee whom they all regard as someone with low character, because truth to tell, when you get to the core of republicans’ true values, character in the true sense doesn’t really matter at all. What matters is protecting republican’s financial interests, their shady business practices, and the right to own an assault rifle.

[SlackerInc]

I’m not worried in the slightest. I continue to feel sanguine that Drumpf will lose badly this fall, the worst loss since at least Dole, and maybe since Dukakis (who actually got closer than Dole in the popular vote, but not in the Electoral College). He’ll probably do better than Mondale or McGovern, although he deserves to do worse and there’s an outside chance he will.