Romney vs Clinton, Romney wins.

Bush vs Clinton round 3

Jeb against Hillary

idk who wins

Jeb ain't got the answers dude, plus GW fucked him. Romney is a lock, book it.

Romney's never had any reason to be voted for except that he wants to be President. Next year he's going to have to move further to the right, which means he'll get less votes than last time. If the GOP wants to keep from being the national comedy hour, they need to (and can) do better than Romney. On the same token, the Dems need to (and can) do better than Clinton, otherwise we'll be looking at the same gridlock healthcare caused because a few years ago a few dudes died in Benghazi and it's somehow Clinton's fault.

Romney and Clinton are both terrible candidates. They're the most likely ones now, but hopefully we can do better.

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My thought is that Romney will run a much better campaign this time around and stay much closer to the center during the primary. I could be completely wrong, but that's why he's my pick to win (not my vote). He really should have destroyed Obama in 2012 imo but he ran too far right to win the primary.

In addition to that, no one has emerged on the right that can beat him.

Romney = no latino vote, no minority vote of any kind really, NO TEA PARTY support, he was BLOWN out in an election versus a hugely unpopular President etc etc need any more facts presented.

Republicans will say no thanks in the primaries to MITT

and 2 years of Dem. President - Republican Congress gridlock -worse gridlock than the past 4 years of Dem Sentae/Rep House / Dem President- will change the political dynamic of the 2016 election just like the 2014 Congressional election dynamic was changed and favored the Republicans

Now I am neither REP or DEM anymore though if i had define myself i am a financial conservative (R) and a moral liberal(D) which surprises everyone given my old age and southern upbringing =)

Also i tend to agree that Hillary may not be the best candidate the Dems could put out there, having a woman win a major party Presidential Nominee for the first time in history would again change the dynamic of the 2016 election.

Jeb Bush i concur may be a little Dark Horse but he has HUGE Latino support, hell even Democrats like Bill Richardson have said they might support him, and the Latino community vote is very underrated IMO by both parties.

WE shall see how it unfolds

Mitt Romney became the poster child for right-wing elitism in his 2012 campaign, starting with the 47% fiasco and running downhill from there. Hilary Clinton's healthcare policy is kinda scary, though -- we tried it in Washington state in the early 90's, and it cost us a lot of small businesses.

It almost doesn't matter who wins the chair, honestly -- we have zero candidates who can persuade both parties to work... at all, so we're still looking at projectile-blaming partisan deadlock for the foreseeable future.

But for the record, I'm expecting Hilary to narrowly defeat Romney or Bush -- or lose roundly to a more serious Republican candidate if they can manufacture one by late 2015.

I'm having a hard time seeing a Clinton OR a Bush ending up at the finish line, largely because everyone I talk to is *done* with those families. That said, everyone I hear talking is convinced Clinton has it on lock. And Jeb in the pool forces Romney to run further to the right than he can win on, I think.

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Everyone I talk to is done with those families too, but I'm not sure we've assigned causation in the right direction there.

https://twitter.com/mcbridetd/status/556943659770195969

I don't know how anyone looks at this list and doesn't see Romney as the obvious winner. GOP doesn't fall in love, they fall in line.

O I agree GOP falls in line exactly as it states, and you could very well be right on Romney winning nomination,but falling in line for the GOP didn't translate well at ALL from primary elections to national election as you can plainly see by the statistics of 2012 national election:

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php

Yeah polls today only represent how well-known that candidate is on the national stage. None of those other guys were the Presidential nominee in the last election.

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Mitt Romney told supporters Friday that he would not run for president in 2016, ending three weeks of public speculation and sparing the Republican Party a potentially bruising nominating battle between its past nominee and its rising stars.

“After putting considerable thought into making another run for president, I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the party the opportunity to become our next nominee,” Romney said in a statement he read to supporters on a conference call Friday morning.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html

Honestly, I hope none of the current GOP contenders get even close to winning.

Surcam has been ELIMINATED

lol, I suck!

<Someone not on the national scene> R vs <someone else not on the national scene> D

and I hope the L and G candidates get more votes this year.

Oh, and I was just elected to Town Council

Gratz Krby!

Bernie Sanders will never get elected President, but I hope he makes enough noise to drive Clinton to the left. Or at least to bring another democrat out of the woodwork who makes Clinton look like the barely-a-democrat she is. Hopefully the republicans can find a decent candidate for their side, I wouldn't mind voting for them again if they put an end to the perpetual shit show. I just want a decent left vs. right debate, not two barely-different flavors of the same shit.

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I'd prefer to not elect a politician ....

Well that's never going to be an option.

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I am going for Hillary!

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"Creating Havoc and Pie Since 2001!"
My Website: http://www.anthonyhays.com
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I admit I'm rather intrigued by Bernie Sanders (I) from Vermont..

Looking forward to the GOP dog fight and Trump in the first debate. It should be hilarious.

Bernie Sanders is interesting, but without lobbyist money he can't last the race.
We don't elect the best candidate, it's the illusion of control...

If Trump is the Republican candidate, I will vote for any Democrat put up against him (so Hillary).

This is probably true for Ted Cruz as well.

Any other Republican candidate, and I'll likely vote for Bernie Sanders.

I'll take just about anyone over Hillary or Bernie.

Obama's idiotic policies have fucked over too many people I know as it is. The last thing I want is another 4 years of that shit. No thanks.

Not thrilled with the Republican selection at all, but I'll take just about anything over those two.

The whole thing is a shitshow. No matter who wins the election, if anyone does, we all lose.

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...

This is true. Very true.

I'll take a socialist over a Facist Mussolini wannabe or a Teabag nutjob like Cruz.

Of course you would.

And this country would suffer (even more) for it.

I just need to know who joxur hates so I can figure out my vote.

suffer how, when 61% of people say the economy and their life is better now than it was from 2000-2008 /shrug

nothing is perfect, no single candidate will fix everything or even 10% of the things you think they can

but to prop up someone like Trump as the savior or Avatar candidate to rail against the establishment ??!! a facist, bigoted, mysoginstic, hate filled troll of a real estate mogul who has 4 bankruptcies, and more failed than successful business ventures who exploits the very loopholes he says are the problem and who has ZERO foreign policy exp. and or understanding that his suggestions on policy would violate so many treaty and international laws that your head would spin, and then he would give unlawful orders to our military of which I'm retired of 23 year service and expect them to blindly follow them ??!!

THIS is who you would rather have ??!!

Trump?

No sane person should ever vote for Trump. This might be the year where a third party makes the election a toss-up. I am happy to see that in early polling numbers Johnson/Weld are pulling ~15% (and pulling support nearly equally from R's and D's).

It might still be too early to say this, but I am SOOOOO glad that Cruz is out. That man should not be in any elected position. He scares the crap out of me.

Although I do wonder how much the Terrorist/Hate shooting in Orlando will impact things.

There are a great many things everyday that reaffirm for me that I know very little about this world in the grand scheme of things.

Nothing more so than Trump's presidential campaign. I don't understand anything about it.

61% huh?

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Trump will bring the end of the United States of America, ironically and inadvertently making it Great Again.

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Trump is a fascist. Hillary is on the take, and should be in prison for all manner of offenses (including the e-mail server). No matter who wins, we all lose, as they and/or their flacks have talked about suspending large parts of the Constitution because they're inconvenient. Uh, that's the exact reason why the Constitution exists --to protect everyone from governmental overreach. Of course, most of you seem to think government is your friend, especially in seeking vengeance. We don't need Robespierre and the "national razor" to exact revenge upon other people. Unfortunately, that's what we'll get regardless which of these steaming piles wins.

I can't bring myself to support either of them. They're both liars, thieves, film-flam artists, greedy, vengeful, foul-mouthed, and frauds. The only major difference between them is that Trump didn't allow Americans to needlessly die in Libya, and be didn't store national security information on a private server in violation of Federal law --neither of which will affect Hillary because the Democrat Party has the integrity of a crack whore, and the Justice Department is run by cowards. (If Hillary were a Republican and she had pulled these stunts, would you shrug and say it's no big deal? Or would you be demonstrating and marching and demanding her imprisonment? That's what I thought.) But then, the GOP isn't a lot better, given how their "leaders" are more interested in covering their asses and maintaining their sinecures than with keeping promises to voters or actually doing anything to help the country. I guess that makes them cheating wives and girlfriends in this analogy.

It'll likely come down to who lies better (Hillary), who throws shit better (Hillary), who has the support of the government-financial-media triad (Hillary), and how things that are allegedly beyond anyone's control (international terrorism, continued assassinations of police, financial fallout from Brexit, and the incredible overextension of central banks, to name a few) play out.

My guess is, the big financiers will hold everything together just long enough for Hillary to win. The shit will hit the fan sometime between Thanksgiving and Lincoln's Birthday, and she'll have the pretext to impose martial law before next summer as global markets collapse. If you thought "the great recession" was rough, you haven't seen anything.

And remember: A government that's big enough to give you everything is big enough to take away everything you have.

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"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero

That was an interesting take on things right up until you predicted Martial Law.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

So how about that Weiner?

nothing like elected Lex Luthor, the Anti-Christ and Sauron all rolled up into one orange skinned demagogue

The similarity between the sore losers in 2008 and 2012 and the sore losers in 2016 is depressing. I know Trump is a different beast, but elections have consequences.

True, but as the Trump backers would say, at least the ashtray-hurling, profanity-spewing, ever-cackling psycho hosebeast known as Ms. Inevitability, the Chappaqua Choker, Mrs. Bill Clinton, and The Loser lost.

The main positive here (besides affording me a chance to kick a sociopath when she's down) is that the moron who compounded Bush's mistakes by fucking up every policy initiative in the Middle East that she touched ("we came, we conquered, he died, tee hee") can't get us into a nuclear war with Russia by ordering a first strike.

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"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero

I was gone from the thread before Trump emerged, but quick synopsis:

I was a Washington State level delegate for Bernie Sanders, but dental surgery took me out before I could go, so I really only served Congressional District 1 and then sent my alternate. In a really educational display of what you can due to fair process when money is no object, he never got a fair vote and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (then Chair-thing of the Democratic Party) essentially selected Hillary Clinton by fiat. Thoroughly illegal examination of her e-mail account suggests that this is justified by the firm belief that Clinton deserved the Presidency because "it was her turn."

The rest is history, I guess. I voted for Clinton, essentially because (brace yourself - time passes) my pride isn't worth taking a stand over and she was the more qualified candidate, but a large number of my compatriots took the stance that it was better to watch it all burn than to reward Clinton's tactics. I feel sympathy for that viewpoint, as I really wanted to take it myself, but ultimately I felt that even after stealing the DNC nomination, Clinton was the better choice. That speaks more to the unspeakable horror that was the spectre of a Trump presidency and not really at all to the validity of Hillary Clinton as President.

I was disappointed. I really wanted the first female US President to be elected because she was the best qualified candidate, objectively -- not for the simple reason that she possessed a vagina, which was the bastion to which Clinton appeared to retreat whenever attacked. It was like watching an MLS game -- the moment calf grazed calf, she hit the deck and screamed for the ref to give her something for free, or else protect her from thoroughly deserved retribution. I was embarassed for all of my compatriots preparing to celebrate a woman winning the office on solid grounds, because a Clinton victory would be exceptionally vulnerable to the assertion that sexism won her the office. She pandered to it, as if she knew she was at a disadvantage even before that was obvious to anyone else.

I was at AFK Tavern (a geek bar in Everett, WA) on election night. I watched a free nation of rational adults elect a racist demagogue on purpose, sipping, then chugging Guinness as the night wore on.

For reasons why that happened, I suggest one read the collected writings of David Wong, particularly the ones published since 10/8/16. He's an amazing and insightful author, and tells the story way better than I could. The short version is that a large number of people we completely abandoned to die in piles of rust from abandoned manufacturing and mining facilities felt a strong compulsion to remind us that they exist, and Trump chose the surprisingly brilliant strategy of speaking directly to them. While I revile their choice of candidate... I kind of understand what made them desperate enough to send us where we are.

Since the election, I've withdrawn from political involvement and concentrated on career issues, sending donations to Planned Parenthood, Child's Play, and Pasado's Safe Haven as finances allow. I'm not unwilling to get further involved -- I just don't see a movement forming that would credibly make a difference.

Yet.

I'll point out that the overgrown orangutan has been threatening to do *just* that with North Korea.

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Anyone who didn't expect the Trump Presidency to be exactly what it is is either a racist bigot or incredibly fucking stupid.

Those being his primary bases, that's not surprising.

I have to constantly remind myself that none of this is normal. With each new day a different reason to be angry, or upset, or just baffled, I do not understand this country and the people who support Trump. He is harming us in ways we will only fully understand decades from now, much the same as Nixon.

I think America is broken beyond repair. My wife and I are discussing moving away. Overseas. Someplace unlikely to be a target if the orange imbecile starts a war with his fucking Twitter account.

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I don't agree that it's beyond repair, but it's certainly irreparable until a change of command is enacted.

I will say that knowing that ultimately Tyral and I are on the same side is actually a reassuring thing. The squabbles of 1999 seem so tiny now.

The Republicans and the Libtards are equally pathetic. Not a huge fan of Trump, but truthfully he hasn't destroyed the United States. In some ways we are stronger than before. That being said, we can, and should, do better.

So many want to impeach Trump but what they don't realize is that when they do, Pence will be even worse. Unlike Trump, Pence has the ability to get Trump's agenda passed and knows how to play the game. The best hope we have is wait until 2020, stay far away from these Socialist wackos, and vote for the best candidate. I'm a conservative but I will vote Democrat in a heartbeat as long as they are the best candidate for the job. In the past I wouldn't throw away my vote by going 3rd party, well those days are past. I will gladly throw that vote away as long as I place it for who I most believe in.

Good to come on here and see some discussion. Man, I miss the old debates we used to have. They were heated, but at least is wasn't the bullshit that passes for discussion now.

I might be the one person who has had their political leanings change the most in here. Yes, I used to be the standard bearer for the GOP, but nope, not going there again. No way. I didn't vote for Trump, would never vote for Trump and I did not vote for Hillary (too much baggage from coming of age in Little Rock when it was under Clinton control). I wasted my vote on a third party.

Now, three years in the Trump term and we are racing towards the government banning abortion and installing a religious police squad to allow followers of Jesus to do whatever they want in his name, but if you don't follow, you are piss out of luck. OK maybe that is a bit extreme, but not much.

I'm afraid that the Democrats will do something stupid and nominate Bernie, Joe, or Elizabeth Warren for 2020. None of those have a chance vs the cheeto-in-chief. They need to nominate a Gen-X'er (or at least someone too young to be in the Baby Boom generation). They need to nominate someone with military experience and is energetic. Their nominee needs to make people want to vote for him/her because relying on people to vote against Trump is a sure way to get four more years.

My thoughts on the current crop of Dems running for the nom:

- Front Runners, favorite to be the nominee:
Kamala Harris (D), a U.S. senator from California
Cory Booker (D), a U.S. senator from New Jersey
Julián Castro (D), a former U.S. secretary of housing and urban development and San Antonio mayor
Pete Buttigieg (D), the mayor of South Bend (LONGSHOT)
Kirsten Gillibrand (D), a U.S. senator from New York

- Old people that will be in the race, should gracefully step aside as their time has past (None of these have any chance to beat Trump):
Joe Biden (D), a former vice president of the United States
Bernie Sanders (I), a U.S. senator from Vermont
Elizabeth Warren (D), U.S. senator from Massachusetts

- Wild-cards, will probably hang around too long (already too long), work on getting the Veep nom:
Bill de Blasio (D), the mayor of New York City
Amy Klobuchar (D), a U.S. senator from Minnesota
Tulsi Gabbard (D), a U.S. representative from Hawaii
Beto O'Rourke (D), former U.S. representative from Texas
Tim Ryan (D), a U.S. representative from Ohio

- Need to drop out today, a few possible Veep ideas here:
Michael Bennet (D), a U.S. senator from Colorado
Steve Bullock (D), the governor of Montana
John Delaney (D), a former U.S. representative from Maryland
Mike Gravel (D), a former U.S. senator from Alaska
John Hickenlooper (D), a former governor of Colorado
Jay Inslee (D), the governor of Washington
Wayne Messam (D), the mayor of Miramar, Florida
Seth Moulton (D), a U.S. representative from Massachusetts
Joe Sestak (D), a former U.S. representative from Pennsylvania and three-star U.S. Navy admiral
Eric Swalwell (D), a U.S. representative from California
Marianne Williamson (D), an author and lecturer
Andrew Yang (D), an entrepreneur and author from New York

#Klobuchar2020 please.