2016 Presidential Race

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2016 Presidential Race

Post by Brontoburglar »

Ted Cruz's candidacy is going to be fun.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Canada's own!
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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No, it's not.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Obama would win a third term, correct?
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Bill Clinton would win a 7th term
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

Post by Gunpowder »

Wait - Ted Cruz was actually born in Canada? Not that I really care about that but why is he eligible?
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Ted Cruz is not going to win, I don't know why anybody would be afraid of him.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Gunpowder wrote:Wait - Ted Cruz was actually born in Canada? Not that I really care about that but why is he eligible?
Was a US citizen at birth. Doesn't matter where he was born.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Gunpowder wrote:Ted Cruz is not going to win, I don't know why anybody would be afraid of him.
The comedic value will be really high.

Cruz/Santorum 2016?
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Gunpowder wrote:Wait - Ted Cruz was actually born in Canada? Not that I really care about that but why is he eligible?
If you are born in another country, even if you are a citizen of that country, but one of your parents is a US citizen, you are a natural born citizen. So looking at a hypothetical, if a man was born in Kenya, to a Kenyan father and an American mother, he would be considered a natural born US citizen and eligible to become President. Even if his mother married an Indonesian man, and he lived in Indonesia for a few years, and ate dog meat.

What would the Republicans say if a Canadian born candidate with a Cuban father who supported who fought for Castro in the Cuban Revolution to install a COMMUNIST regime in a country only 90 miles from the US! A regime that hid Soviet nuclear missiles 90 miles from the US!!! They wouldn't even need Donald Trumps crack team of investigators who found so much damning evidence, as Cruz admits it all.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Gunpowder wrote:Ted Cruz is not going to win, I don't know why anybody would be afraid of him.
Exactly. I think he's basically the Herman Cain of this election cycle in terms of attention vs. legitimacy.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Ted Cruz is just maximizing the money he's going to make on speeches, board directorships, and in his media roles after he drops politics. You're not really 'running for President.' You're running for centi-millionaire. Just doing some marketing for your future global celebrity conglomerate by raising the ol' profile, and using other peoples' money to do it. The goal is Palin with far more brains, class and mainstream legitimacy.

And if you get very, amazingly, astonishingly lucky, then you're president. That can happen if you win the first win the Republican contest among the crazy, simply because Hilary Clinton will never be widely popular and can implode at any time, with one leak from behind the Kremlin walls. Cruz is not such an improbable president. He's Obama with more experience. If he's smart, he'll run a campaign with all of Obama's lack of substance.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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I bet the GOP wants Cruz to run because he'll lose and the GOP can continue to blame things on the President and keep their jobs.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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The mere fact that Cruz announced his candidacy at a university founded by a man who thought 9/11 happened because of the gay should tell you all you need to know about how this campaign will be run.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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DC47 wrote:Ted Cruz is just maximizing the money he's going to make on speeches, board directorships, and in his media roles after he drops politics. You're not really 'running for President.' You're running for centi-millionaire. Just doing some marketing for your future global celebrity conglomerate by raising the ol' profile, and using other peoples' money to do it. The goal is Palin with far more brains, class and mainstream legitimacy.

And if you get very, amazingly, astonishingly lucky, then you're president. That can happen if you win the first win the Republican contest among the crazy, simply because Hilary Clinton will never be widely popular and can implode at any time, with one leak from behind the Kremlin walls. Cruz is not such an improbable president. He's Obama with more experience. If he's smart, he'll run a campaign with all of Obama's lack of substance.
I'm with you until the bolded line. The man would never, ever, ever be able to win votes from non-hardliners.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Jerloma wrote:The mere fact that Cruz announced his candidacy at a university founded by a man who thought 9/11 happened because of the gay should tell you all you need to know about how this campaign will be run.
Word. Cruz won't be taken seriously by anyone except the extreme nutjobs. He comes across as a neutered dimwit with no charm or charisma. More than any other potential contender, he either lies or is completely dead wrong on facts and completely unable to comprehend science despite being the Chair of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness. And he laughs at terrified 3 year old children while telling them "their world is on fire." Instill the fear young to keep them voting Republican.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

Post by Gunpowder »

Jerloma wrote:The mere fact that Cruz announced his candidacy at a university founded by a man who thought 9/11 happened because of the gay should tell you all you need to know about how this campaign will be run.

Did he do it at Liberty?

Weird that a college called Liberty is the one with the most rules against your personal freedoms.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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It was very reasonable when Obama announced his presidential run to believe that he would have trouble cracking 10% even in the Democratic primaries. And there was once a far-right politician -- considered a nut-case by many -- with no mainsteam support at all who had an optometrist son who wanted to get into politics, but not even in his dad's state where there might have been some natural backers. What a laugh. A few years later and he's a serious presidential contender.

We live in a world where the odds-on favorite to be the next president has as her primary qualification that she was a scandal-ridden president's wife who took the lead role on his greatest policy failure. She used that non-credential, and nothing more, to become an ineffective Senator. Then used that to blow an overwhelming lead in a presidential race to the most unlikely candidate ever. That led directly to the chance to fail as Secretary of State. So now she will most likely be the next president.

Politics is really a strange, strange land. Big money moves mountains -- and there is far more now than there was even 6 years ago. Very little about politics is too strange for me to believe. President Ted Cruz isn't even all that close to the boundary. A couple candidate implosions (and they've all got secrets), a few fortuitous events, the right big-money backers, and Ted Cruz is rolling.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Gunpowder wrote:
Jerloma wrote:The mere fact that Cruz announced his candidacy at a university founded by a man who thought 9/11 happened because of the gay should tell you all you need to know about how this campaign will be run.

Did he do it at Liberty?

Weird that a college called Liberty is the one with the most rules against your personal freedoms.
Fitting, since they produce the radical wing of the party for "small government" and "keeping the government out of our lives" that is focused on the government prohibiting the most intimate personal freedoms.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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DC47 wrote:It was very reasonable when Obama announced his presidential run to believe that he would have trouble cracking 10% even in the Democratic primaries. And there was once a far-right politician -- considered a nut-case by many -- with no mainsteam support at all who had an optometrist son who wanted to get into politics, but not even in his dad's state where there might have been some natural backers. What a laugh. A few years later and he's a serious presidential contender.

We live in a world where the odds-on favorite to be the next president has as her primary qualification that she was a scandal-ridden president's wife who took the lead role on his greatest policy failure. She used that non-credential, and nothing more, to become an ineffective Senator. Then used that to blow an overwhelming lead in a presidential race to the most unlikely candidate ever. That led directly to the chance to fail as Secretary of State. So now she will most likely be the next president.

Politics is really a strange, strange land. Big money moves mountains -- and there is far more now than there was even 6 years ago. Very little about politics is too strange for me to believe. President Ted Cruz isn't even all that close to the boundary. A couple candidate implosions (and they've all got secrets), a few fortuitous events, the right big-money backers, and Ted Cruz is rolling.

I don't remember Obama being considered as someone who would struggle to get 10% in a primary.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Obama was a young, black first-term senator who had done nothing nationally and whose major professional achievements were to be a part-time college instructor and community organizer, and who had lost his only congressional race. 10% is generous. His candidacy grew.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Canadian-born Cuban. Harvard and Princeton educated. Former adjunct professor at the University of Texas. Youngest and longest serving solicitor General in Texas history.

And he's a leader of the fucking Tea Party.

You can't make this shit up.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Technically, Iowa was a caucus, not a primary. But his initial chances there were rated low. There was consternation about whether Iowans would caucus for a black candidate. His campaign was very well financed and organized, he got a very early start.

Although, according to the wiki, Barry began polling in Iowa with 10 and 12%.

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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Going back to at least Abe Lincoln, the United States has been led by many an improbable leader.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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And after Obama's speech at the 2004(?) Democratic Convention, he was seen as very promising potential star.
Totally Kafkaesque
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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DC47 wrote:Going back to at least Abe Lincoln, the United States has been led by many an improbable leader.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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DC47 wrote:Obama was a young, black first-term senator who had done nothing nationally and whose major professional achievements were to be a part-time college instructor and community organizer, and who had lost his only congressional race. 10% is generous. His candidacy grew.

The difference is Obama has charisma, personality, was a great campaign speaker and ran on a vague platform of Hope and Change during a time when everything was going to shit. Obama rallied the youth into activism and heavily used the internet to build a following. Cruz is a dull schlub with vacant, scary eyes, no charisma or personality, isn't a good campaign speaker or interviewee and he is campaigning on a targeted platform aimed at a radical extreme wing of his party. Cruz will have a strong following, and will gain some more when similar candidates like Walker and Huckabee drop out, but Cruz is not going to win over many people. Anyone who is going to back Cruz is already won over. I think the eventual frontrunners and nominees would be a big surprise today, but I'll SL's balls if Cruz wins. (Rass bookmarking this) Maybe it's wishful thinking, but in the recent past, the favorite this far out falls off.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Still scares the shit out of me because of the whole "what if" potential.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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I'm thinking Rand Paul wins the GOP nomination.

And, if Lady MacBeth gets the Dem nomination, he wins.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Israel hatin' Rand Paul? Fuhgeddaboutit
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Rand Paul will be the 2016 version of Santorum. The story of the would-be competitor that really doesn't have a chance.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Shirley wrote:And after Obama's speech at the 2004(?) Democratic Convention, he was seen as very promising potential star.
For some, this meant the Dems had a black man they could use to signify that they were down. A safe one, who talked good. Not a threat. He could be their 'one of my best friends is black' black man. A good guy to fly in to the urban part of your district when you were campaigning.

Others thought that he might one day actually be a real political leader. One day meaning 10+ years later. Like, when he had actually done something.

Anyone who thought, after one speech and in the context of his lack of prior achievements in any domain, that he would be president in four years was way, way out there. Note that by the time the Iowa caucuses happened, much later, he was still way down in the polling weeds.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Wasn't not waiting part of the strategy? The longer a guy is known, the longer he has to accumulate a record to be used against him or say/do something stupid like shut down a fucking bridge.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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DC47 wrote:
Shirley wrote:And after Obama's speech at the 2004(?) Democratic Convention, he was seen as very promising potential star.
For some, this meant the Dems had a black man they could use to signify that they were down. A safe one, who talked good. Not a threat. He could be their 'one of my best friends is black' black man. A good guy to fly in to the urban part of your district when you were campaigning.

Others thought that he might one day actually be a real political leader. One day meaning 10+ years later. Like, when he had actually done something.

Anyone who thought, after one speech and in the context of his lack of prior achievements in any domain, that he would be president in four years was way, way out there. Note that by the time the Iowa caucuses happened, much later, he was still way down in the polling weeds.
The factor you're not accounting for is that Obama was the only 2008 presidential candidate of significance who opposed the Iraq War at the time we entered into it. Considering that the Iraq War is one of the single most disastrous policy decisions in U.S. history, that was a pretty big deal. It was by far the biggest reason why, even though I was a 23-year old with student debt and limited disposable income, I decided to contribute to his campaign. Since our political class still tries to ignore just how awful that decision was, I don't think Obama's war opposition gets enough weight in discussions of his meteoric rise.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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The Sybian wrote:
DC47 wrote:Obama was a young, black first-term senator who had done nothing nationally and whose major professional achievements were to be a part-time college instructor and community organizer, and who had lost his only congressional race. 10% is generous. His candidacy grew.
he difference is Obama has charisma, personality, was a great campaign speaker
If Hilary had beaten him to a pulp -- as she would have if she had not run a horrible campaign -- this is not what they'd say about him now. How many were even saying this during his re-election race?
... and ran on a vague platform of Hope and Change during a time when everything was going to shit.
It worked that time. He had nothing else to try, having done nothing and standing for nothing. Oh, he wrote two narcissistic books. If this is the magic formula when things are bad, it's amazing that it has not worked so well previously.
Obama rallied the youth into activism and heavily used the internet to build a following.
McGovern did the first, at a time when youth were more important. He was also the anti-war candidate (kind of a big deal among the youth and activists) when America hated the Vietnam War. He lost in a landslide. One difference: he had a competent opponent.

The internet advantage thing was a one-time fluke. Everybody gets it now, and should have then. Obama had the advantage here and elsewhere because he ran against one of the worst candidate teams (not just the candidate) running one of the worst campaigns in recent history. Of all the many things they were bad at, technology was near the top.
Cruz is a dull schlub with vacant, scary eyes, no charisma or personality, isn't a good campaign speaker or interviewee and he is campaigning on a targeted platform aimed at a radical extreme wing of his party. Cruz will have a strong following, and will gain some more when similar candidates like Walker and Huckabee drop out, but Cruz is not going to win over many people. Anyone who is going to back Cruz is already won over. I think the eventual frontrunners and nominees would be a big surprise today, but I'll SL's balls if Cruz wins. (Rass bookmarking this) Maybe it's wishful thinking, but in the recent past, the favorite this far out falls off.
Most long-shots lose. Most with extreme positions lose. Cruz is in both categories and probably will lose.

But those who give him very low odds because of claims like this are missing the historical boat. Many candidates with major flaws win. They have strengths that may get magnified due to the dynamics of a particular campaign, plus did I mention gigantic sums of money? Also, it's possible that things break their way, and against their opponents. First in the primaries, then the main election. The favorable nature of current, unpredictable events plus the low quality of the opponent's campaign have made many an underdog a winner.

Obama had major flaws, which were erased by winning. In addition to things I've mentioned earlier, one example is the well-documented sweet real estate deal in Chicago with the influence-seeking felon. But all of the above came his way, so he was a winner who is retrospectively seen as a candidate whose political flaws were far exceeded by his virtues.

I give both Cruz and Paul much higher odds than some here seem to.

By the way, I haven't looked at the polls, but aren't Jeb and HC the favorites?
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Joe K wrote:
DC47 wrote:
Shirley wrote:And after Obama's speech at the 2004(?) Democratic Convention, he was seen as very promising potential star.
For some, this meant the Dems had a black man they could use to signify that they were down. A safe one, who talked good. Not a threat. He could be their 'one of my best friends is black' black man. A good guy to fly in to the urban part of your district when you were campaigning.

Others thought that he might one day actually be a real political leader. One day meaning 10+ years later. Like, when he had actually done something.

Anyone who thought, after one speech and in the context of his lack of prior achievements in any domain, that he would be president in four years was way, way out there. Note that by the time the Iowa caucuses happened, much later, he was still way down in the polling weeds.
The factor you're not accounting for is that Obama was the only 2008 presidential candidate of significance who opposed the Iraq War at the time we entered into it. Considering that the Iraq War is one of the single most disastrous policy decisions in U.S. history, that was a pretty big deal. It was by far the biggest reason why, even though I was a 23-year old with student debt and limited disposable income, I decided to contribute to his campaign. Since our political class still tries to ignore just how awful that decision was, I don't think Obama's war opposition gets enough weight in discussions of his meteoric rise.
Obama's 'opposition' was just a vote. I don't recall him using his amazing charisma to organize protests or a march in D.C.. Did he manage to parlay this minimal commitment to political advantage? Sure, especially in the primary. But I don't think it got him that much with the general public, which was foolishly not particularly anti-war.

The Iraq War was a stupid thing to do. Like most of our stupid military interventionism since WWII. But just as with the others, most of American went right along. This was even true in Vietnam, right until the end. And then a few years after each ended, people lapse into forgetfulness. I'll bet the majority of Americans today could say nothing at all about the Iraq War, including who was president at the time.

But yes, everything about Obama played well with the average college student. Everything about McCain was the reverse.

So this helped him. But not nearly as much as having a lot of money (including from the 1%), running against an unpopular incumbent's successor, the financial crisis falling exactly when it did (and at the feet of the Republicans), and having McCain write the book on how to sabotage a campaign.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

Post by howard »

DC47 wrote:…and having McCain write the book on how to sabotage a campaign.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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I think the more objective eye of history will show that Barack Obama was the luckiest presidential politician in American history. Put simply, his opponents ran the worst campaigns by serious contenders in recent times. Yet Obama is credited with political genius. Receiving this credit is his actual genius.

Consider Obama's opponents:

John Edwards: He was a low-achieving, relative political novice from a rural state (and not all that popular there) whose campaign was a collapsing joke among insiders, perhaps because long before the Iowa caucus he was already on the run from reports that he was cheating on his dying wife with a woman he paid (with campaign money) to shoot videos despite her lack of credentials.

Hilary Clinton: She ran a clumsy campaign that will be studied for years to come in terms of blowing a large lead. Also, perhaps the most disliked candidate in decades among mainstream Americans.

John McCain: He ran perhaps the only campaign in recent years that was as bad as Hilary Clinton's. Had no chance to escape the twin anchors of being the wildly unpopular Bush's successor and the leader of the party that was most visibly responsible for the Wall Street disaster that was -- as the election took place -- threatening many Americans with personal financial ruin. Palin.

Mitt Romney: Being Mitt Romney. That plays at the yacht club, but it's never a good thing in an election where regular people vote. Even less so as economic inequality became a increasingly widespread concern.

If this year's New York Knicks played in a league with the Pistons, Kings, Timberwolves, and Lakers, it is possible that if events broke their way (at least before Anthony went down and they dismantled the team), they could have won several games in a row. This would not necessarily mean that they had mastered the triangle offense under the brilliant, unselfish leadership of Carmelo Anthony. So too with Barack Obama's electoral prowess.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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Mr. DC is spot on in that analysis.

There are parallels in Canada in general and Ontario in particular - but I won't bore you guys with the details.

I think Ronald Reagan also benefitted from weak opposition. True, he smoked the Democrats, but in boxing terms, he was facing Primo Carnera and Mike Weaver.
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Re: 2016 Presidential Race

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