Hillary would be in her own category of completely unqualified

Can you expand on that? Why?

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

What's your rationale?

She never had a real job. She won her Senate election on Bill's coattails. She was appointed SEC STATE as a payoff.

both ford and trump benefit from a Keyes Constant of support probably around the low-mid 20s. those people will hang on no matter what. but that's not enough to win, and all the rest of their support is contingent.

i think the important part with trump and ford is that in order for something to truly damage their popularity, it needs to be something that contradicts their 'brand.' ford was famously uncouth to begin with, so further evidence of that didn't really amount of much in the eyes of his supporters. he was also famously devoted to "the little guy," and preoccupied with "cutting the waste." so if his detractors had more clearly been able to indicate that ford was a spendy elite who rigged the system to benefit himself and his rich pals, that would be hugely damning and would cost him core support.

for trump, the question is what his core brand is: celebrity? wealth? going after him for being brash and rude, or inconsistent, or ignorant of details, or vague and jingoistic, or selfish - these things won't amount to much. but you may get traction out of showing he's much less rich than he claims, or that he doesn't care about the 'little guy,' or that he's not an 'outsider/maverick' but is beholden to entrenched interests. those cut more to his brand and might work out.

that or, as they say, a dead girl or a live boy.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Trump said " manafort did a terrific job". He jobbed the carny.

Trump said "manafort did a terrific job"

Trump says this about everyone. It's like breathing for him. It's part of his default Trump-talk - "such and such is terrific" or "such and such is doing a terrific job".

Of course it can flip around to - someone or something can go very quickly from doing a "terrific job", to being, "a failure" or "overrated. Sad" in the course of a week!

Hard to keep up! :)

. . . and remember "Manafort was only on the job briefly"! :)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

i think the important part with trump and ford is that in order for something to truly damage their popularity, it needs to be something that contradicts their 'brand.' ford was famously uncouth to begin with, so further evidence of that didn't really amount of much in the eyes of his supporters. he was also famously devoted to "the little guy," and preoccupied with "cutting the waste." so if his detractors had more clearly been able to indicate that ford was a spendy elite who rigged the system to benefit himself and his rich pals, that would be hugely damning and would cost him core support.


Many media outlets in Toronto and indeed the rest of Canada, regularly called Ford out on this disconnect - That he SEEMS to be out for the little guy, but in actual fact he's out mostly for himself and his family and friends (all reasonably to very wealthy) However, with respect, that hard-core Ford supporter was typically a low-information type of person. They are NOT reading detailed news pieces, editorials and the like from a range of media outlets and they won't look beyond a head-line. "Cut The Gravy-Train" was a great headline that Ford supporters latched on to, but the Rob Ford year's actually COST the city of Toronto both in monetary and non-monetary ways.

Here's a BIGGY. Had Ford NOT ripped up and killed David Millar's Transit City plan on Day-1 in office, many of those Light-Rail Transit lines in Scarborough and elsewhere would be NEARING COMPLETION! Today - thanks to Rob Ford, 6+ years on, NOTHING has happened on the transit file, and Scarborough & Toronto is saddled with a $3.5billion one stop subway extension that is YEARS away from seeing a shovel in the ground! So much for saving the city money, and looking out for the little guy and people in Scarborough in particular!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I think Donald Trump will serve out his term as president. I've talked to enough Trump supporters that literally don't care if the Trump campaign colluded with Russians. Given the choice they would rather have a president who is a Russian pawn than a Democrat. I don't think Republicans have any appetite to pursue impeachment, our media will get distracted by the next bizarre Trump tweet and in 6 months nobody except Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges and Abby Martin will even still be talking about it.

Boom, der it is!!!

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"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden

As soon as he buys himself a big boy truck.

He looks like he is having more fun in this picture than he's had in the last 3 months.

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Suffer Well.

Go to Qualified presidents thread. But having read up on Carter and his qualifications I would maybe leave him where he is by your criteria. I was surprised by how much he had done prior to being president. Don't think he was too great a president but separate thread.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Bump.

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Suffer Well.

Not much longer me thinks.........i.e. less than 4 years. More than 4 weeks.

Just need to get to 1/1/18 to collect

Summer's coming. Who the hell wants to be president during BBQ season?!

I give him until June 30th... and then it's Miller time!

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

Time is running out for some of the predictions on this thread. Also looking like Russia collusion will be more of a problem for Hillary than Trump.

Was I crazy with my prediction in March? Well, my thinking aligns with Piers Morgan, who had an editorial yesterday entitled,


Here is what he has to say.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

he made some good points!

Considering it’s Piers Morgan writing this the following passage from the piece is both devastating (to democrats) and astoundingly on point...

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

I never too Piers seriously but he's been pretty on point since Trump announced his candidacy, one of the few who seemed to have the pulse of the general public and ignored the polling data. And I do tend to agree with him, there's absolutely nothing to suggest Trump is in any danger of losing steam, I mean eight months ago everyone figured an impeachment was coming for collusion with the Russians, it's looking more and more likely that he did no such thing and in fact any collusion that happened was done under Obama's watch.

The twitter madness is awful and he comports himself like a spoiled twelve year old but he's been fairly productive in pushing his agenda, for better or worse, and if he gets through substantive tax reform and the economy is booming in a few years there is absolutely no way he'd lose in 2020.

I like the end: It's amazing that the Trump haters still haven't figured out how/why he won, and will still be wondering 3 years from now.

So scream all your like next week, hysterical Trump-hating liberal snowflakes, but I’d save some of your voice for Wednesday, November 4, 2020.
Because that’s when, as things stand, I predict Donald J. Trump will be re-elected President of the United States.
Altogether now: AAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How could it possibly be a problem for Hillary? Going to interfere with her daily routine of gardening and reading? :) Her career is over.

Unless you think it could lead to some sort of criminal indictment, but that seems extraordinarily unlikely both for a Justice Dept. to indict a former Secretary of State (*cough* Kissinger *cough*), and extraordinarily hard to prove that a "donation" is a "payment" unless there's some smoking gun recording or document - there seemingly isn't, that we know of.

Nothing like winning with class. Act like you've been there. :)

Really, it should be, "how to lose with dignity".

And the left certainly isn't trying to learn more from defeat/failure than success.

I mean really, screaming at the sky a year later?!?!

Well you can only be responsible for your own behavior, right? When the other team starts acting like jackasses, that's when acting classy looks the best.


Have you never screamed ineffectually because you're upset at something? I sure have! Sometimes even screaming profanities. Though with the Trump thing I did more of a quiet facepalm than a scream, It's OK, we'll get through this like 0.0001% of the U.S. population participating in a primal scream event. I don't think anyone'll get hurt.

I like the end: It's amazing that the Trump haters still haven't figured out how/why he won, and will still be wondering 3 years from now.

I keep reading this but not sure what it means.

I've heard hundreds of different reasons for Trumps win from his supporters and haters and almost every single one is different. I don't think the Trump supporters are in agreement as to why he won because it is different depending on where they live, where they work and their political affiliation. If they're not in agreement, why is it so odd that the Trump haters are the same?