Who do you think will do well in the debate tonight (8/6/15)?

Politics & Elections
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What she said was this:

So while she couched her remarks in concern about his temperament it looks very much to me like she was indeed accusing him (albeit by proxy) of misogyny and waging a war against women.

I agree that he may not have been ready to answer the charges, but I’m also cognizant that had he done so he’d have been playing to political correctness in the same way that’s resulted in all the other candidates being so helpless. Even if he’d done so, his enemies would no doubt want to start probing his businesses and interviewing his female executives and looking for anything they could use to undercut his, for want of a better word, excuses. I think he was wiser and it was more in keeping with his message and his personna to answer just the way he did.

I have to say this is the strangest definition of political correctness I’ve ever heard.

What you’re talking about are political philosophies and policy positions, which both sides have.

There’s a difference between bringing it to the fore in terms of national dialog and working to achieve something on it through legislation. My comment, as I said to Richard Parker, was that Trump was responsible for making it uppermost or close to it in the minds of America’s citizenry. Trump himself said that if it weren’t for him no one would even be talking about it, and he’s right. The left certainly isn’t interested in dealing with it, and the candidates on the right are too afraid of political correctness to tackle it the way it should be. Trump is the only one who’d confronting the issue in the terms many conservatives want to see it addressed, which is to halt the influx of people coming into the country illegally, to do away with the ridiculousness of sanctuary cities, and only allow people to immigrate if they do so legally. There’s not a thing in the world wrong with any of that, but political correctness in this country has brought us to the point that even mentioning any of those things gets one labelled a racist. Trump doesn’t give a shit what people call him, he just wants the country to abide by its laws and to control its immigration like every other civilized, developed country in the world does.

I wouldn’t say he’s an ‘unprovoked’ jerk, nor to ‘a lot’ of people. Most of the people he’s been a jerk to have attacked him first, and the ones he’s been a jerk to without having been personally attacked by them are the politicians who he feels are making stupid decisions that are harming the country.

This is kind of what I’m talking about. You never hear anyone attacked for being sexist when they deride America’s ‘angry white males’.

202

Most people will barely remember this debate by time the actual voting starts. Though he’s unlikely to win, Santorum has as much chance as most of candidates it the second debate. The candidates who have no real shot now, are the same ones who had no real shot before the debates.

What really amazes me is Rick Perry. On paper he should be one of the most electable candidates up there. You got to be some kind of industrial strength doofus, to be the longest serving governor of the second most populous state in the union, and still be considered a long-shot joke candidate playing on the same level as Carly Fiorina.

203

I am unlikely to ever watch Red Dawn, but should like to say that excluding reserves, the Cuban Army of the 1980s was about 145,000 according to an alarmist article in The Atlantic, whilst the Thananithstas had 80,000 according to Wikipedia. Of course, they’d have to leave a few brave souls at home to defend against counterattack.
Americans luxuriate in their fearfulness whilst being wholly competent to wipe out entire small nations. I won’t bother to look up whatever was the US military power back then, but even if that was completely inadequate and comparatively out-gunned, these people wouldn’t have got past the good folk of Texas.

204

The Cubans and Nicaraguans just knocked the door in. In the movie the Soviets come in afterwards.

205

OK, then explain what you mean by the term, other than “positions held by liberals.”

How I would define political correctness is when it’s somewhere between a significant faux pas and anathema within a particular group to hold (or not hold) a particular position.

This is a definition that has the advantage of being neutral with respect to party or left-right orientation.

And conservatives, by this definition, have tons of issues where they’ve determined what the politically correct position is, some of which I’ve named.

206

I think an excellent example of right-wing political correctness is Ted Cruz’s claims about uttering the phrase “Islamic extremist.” How is that not an attempt to say “You can’t just say something, you have to say it the politically correct way”?

207

Those I liked for vary reasons were: Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Jim Gilmore, Donald Trump(except for the attacks).

Chris Christie grew on me. Gilmore is the only one of the pre date, Happy Hour debate that I liked.

208

I didn’t watch the whole thing, but I did catch Christie/Paul’s argument over the NSA spying. I personally found Christie’s stance on the issue repugnant (saying that it’s okay to ignore the 4th Amendment on the off chance we find terrorists), especially since he basically just tried to drape himself in 9/11 as justification. Then again, I’m not exactly the usual Republican voter, but I gotta wonder - among conservative voters, is there more support for Christie’s pro-security position over Paul’s libertarian position?

209

Now Democrats support NSA data collection, Republicans are opposed:

210

Boy howdy, what a slanted article:

So let’s see: in 2006, only 37% of Dems thought it was acceptable for the government to read our emails and listen in on phone calls without any court approval at all.

But in 2013, 64% of Dems were OK with tracking calls with a court order from the FISA court.

So two rather significant differences in what’s being asked: content v. metadata, and court approval v. none.

And this represents a swing of opinion how, exactly? How do we know that 64% of Dems wouldn’t have been OK with the 2013 question back in 2006? There’s certainly plenty of room for people to be against the first, but OK with the second.

Meanwhile, 75% of Republicans in 2006 supported listening in on phone calls and reading emails without a court order, while in 2013, 52% of Republicans were OK with metadata collection with a FISA court order.

The article describes this shift as a ‘more modest’ swing of opinion (23% v. 27% for Dems, basically the same magnitude and probably too close to statistically distinguish).

But the big difference is that this unquestionably represents a real change of opinion on the part of Republicans, while that can’t be said with any certainty for Dems. It was Republicans who were OK with extreme surveillance as long as one of their own was running the show, but who were against more limited surveillance with Obama in the White House.

211

What follows is my direct impression immediately after watching the full debate, and before reading or hearing any punditry or other analysis. The first grade is my estimation of their appeal (in this debate specifically) to the primary electorate. The second grade is my estimation of how their debate performance might play to swing voters. (I am neither a GOP primary voter nor a swing voter, but I think I’ve demonstrated a fairly canny sense of how those groups think in past elections). I added comments in some cases:

Kasich D/A

Christie C+/B

Paul D/D (weird looking)

Rubio C-/C- (comes across like a grade schooler; abortion answer hurts him with moderates)

Cruz B+/F (exactly what I’d have expected)

Carson D+/D (sleepy, out of his league; don’t expect him to be in the top tier for long unless those polled stubbornly cling to the “magic bullet” of an Uncle Tom figure)

Walker A/A- (very smooth but not unctuously so; perfectly pitched except that his abortion stance will definitely need that pivot for the general)

Bush C-/D+ (tongue tied, stiff, uncharismatic, SO establishment)

Trump B/C- (effectively dinged by moderators but fought his way out of tough corners about as well as possible given the difficult position the facts put him in)

Huck: A/C+

There were three candidates who got an “A” from me in either primary or general election appeal. A little more on those three:

Huckabee. His stock seems pretty hot to me right now within the GOP primary electorate. He is effectively pushing the buttons in the way Cruz only wishes he could. Huck seems to have drifted away from some of the elements that made him look eight years ago like he could appeal more to the center (particularly on economic issues), but I suspect he could pivot and get some of that back if and when it is needed in a general election campaign.

Kasich. I continue to be impressed with him as a general election candidate. I think he’d be the GOP standardbearer with the best (if still slim) chance to beat a Democrat, but he’s also the only one I’d feel sort of okay about his actually being president. Which, I think, is a clear sign that he’s unpalatable to the base. But he is no Huntsman; I think he could have a chance to be another McCain or Romney, who could have a chance to get the nomination despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would elicit from the hard right.

Walker is still the really scary one, as I think he has a great shot at the nomination and could be a pretty effective general election candidate, yet I’d be sick to my stomach to have him become president.

P.S. Did anyone notice that Carson and Walker are apparently monists? That should be shocking to most religious conservatives, I’d think.

212

I don’t want a president who’s a jerk to anybody. Can you imagine Obama calling any woman the things that Trump does with regularity? There’s a certain standard of civility that I expect of any human, Trump doesn’t clear that bar, much less that of a president. If you’re in an elementary school playground, maybe you do retaliate for every real or perceived insult. But when you grow up, you leave that behavior behind. At least you’re supposed to.

213

Hear hear!

214

With regularity?

We only know of one instance where he called a woman (Rosie O’Donnell) names, and frankly I’ve called her much worse. It was also in retaliation to an attack she made on him. His philosophy has always been to hit back when attacked, only harder, so his opponent learns not to fuck with him. That’s a good approach in my opinion.

Besides, there are far more important issues at stake. It would be silly to turn away from a candidate you think would do a good job as president and allow elect someone instead who’ll either do the exact opposite (in this case a Democrat) or a much less effective one (one of the other Republicans) simply because you think he was a jerk for calling someone names.

I am interested to note the apparent sexism in your sentiment that Trump shouldn’t talk that way to a woman. In these days, when women talk like sailors and men get ignored or scowled at for holding a door open for a woman, hasn’t it long been the message from the left that to accord women special treatment was a form of sexism designed to keep them in their place?

215

Sexist or not, one way in which we judge gentlemanly behavior is in how a man treats women. Kelly pointed out several examples. In return, Trump strongly alluded that she might be on her period. Can you imagine any president speaking in such crass terms? I can’t see Nixon or Reagan or either Bush doing so.

One could argue that we should accept boorish behavior because someone would make a good president. How so? You get the same policies no matter which Republican is nominated- cut spending, cut taxes, hate abortion, hate Muslims, hate gays… So why tolerate Trump and his infantile behavior when you can get the same thing without the baggage from others?

216
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I imagine that if the truth were known, almost every candidate on both sides has used equally insulting slurs toward people whose behavior they disliked. They just haven’t done so publicly like Trump has prior to his run for president.

Plus the media is out to get this guy like no other. I have no doubt that if they wanted to, the media could find equally noxious comments coming from virtually every other candidate (on both sides) and member of Congress, except perhaps for the strongly religious like Huckabee.

And what’s with all this hate stuff? Surely even you know that it’s possible to dislike certain behaviors without it ipso-facto translating into hatred. You guys do this all the time and it’s quite dishonest.

And running coach, those are the same instances that have been brought up before. Yes, Trump made a lot of harsh comments about Rosie O’Donnell. He made them in response to her mocking him on television, a ridicule that got widespread coverage. He set out to make her pay, and make her pay he did. So far, all we’ve got are two instances where he insulted a woman’s looks, one where he is repulsed by a female attorney wanting to pump breast milk mid-deposition, and one where he popped off about the looks of a female politician.

All this reminds me of the GHW Bush/Ferraro debate in '84, where the day after a debate between the two Bush made the observation that “We tried to kick a little butt last night” and the media immediately turned it into “We tried to kick her little butt last night” in order to make it seem he was condescending and insulting to women.

I’m sure that for every slur Trump has hurled toward a woman there’ve been many more where he’s done the same to men. He’s a rough and tough New York City real estate guy and that’s how they behave. It has nothing to do with sexism. As I’ve said before many of his top executives have been women and his wife Ivana was in total of one of his casinos. Piers Morgan (a guy I detest, btw) recently stated in a column he wrote recently that in four hours of intense discussion in the boardroom of The Apprentice that included women and minorities, he never once saw or heard Trump behave in a sexist or racist manner.

All this is 100% media created and media driven, and its purpose is to drive Trump out of the race. It’s dishonest of the media to bring up only the insults Trump has made toward a handful of women without also showing the many times and ways he’s insulted male opponents as well in an effort to make him look sexist.

218

I guess that’s why he’s polling ahead of you.

Trump is a birther. Anybody who would even consider a birther for President is nuts, in my professional opinion.

ETA: and this has nothing to do with Obama. It’s just that nobody with any intelligence could possibly believe that the government doesn’t vet people before assigning millions of dollars worth of Secret Service protection to them, as the Bush Administration did for Obama in the summer of 2008.

219

Very nice catch.

220

I will acknowledge that Trump’s gonna have to tone it down if he wants to be taken seriously going forward.