Trump runs for POTUS/ Trumped Up! Part VI

[phiwum]

Yes, and they didn't endorse Trump, warning that he was a potential disaster for the country and their party.

Agreed, for the most part.

Some otherwise decent folk were so concerned about the Supreme Court that they backed Trump. I think this was unwise and largely unprincipled (I don't consider party loyalty a deep principle). I don't condone their choice.

 

[steve s]

Here is a weird question

Tim O'Brien is the author of Trump nation. He reviewed Trump tax returns in 2005 as part of a libel case. He has a court gag order.

Is he a bad human being for not breaking the gag order? Should he be pilloried for this?

Given that there doesn't appear to be any illegality in Trump not paying taxes, I'd have to say no.

Steve S

 

[Fast Eddie B]

How about this for a scenario...

Trump is pressured to drop out of the race and does so, perhaps seeing it as a way to avoid the humiliation of a big loss.

The Republican Party begins a process to affect a write-in campaign.

They could select Mike Pence or Paul Ryan or someone else.

All Republican voters would be urged to write in the party's choice.

I think that could actually be a winning strategy. I would never vote for Trump but would for Ryan. I don't currently know enough about Pence to make an informed decision.

Is there any fatal flaw in that scenario? Not talking about the two above names specifically, but the general concept.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It's way too little too late, but it's probably the best they could do right now.

The biggest problem is I see zero chance that Trump would "go away" if the party dropped him. He's still keep be in the public eye, still making an ass of himself and despite disassociating themselves from the GOP would still be connected with him in the minds of the voters. Best case (politically speaking) is he splits the vote with him keeping his cult of personality supporters and the more traditional GOP members going with whoever the replacement is, which be lead a landslide for the Democratic Party.

They've lost this election. Any damage control at this point is either to save face or long term plans for recovery.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

How is that a double standard? Were we not supposed to elect Bill Clinton for things he did after he was elected? Or are we supposed to elect Trump despite his admitted behavior, revealed prior to the election, because Clinton was accused, after having been elected, of behaving similarly?

Did you not read my prior posts? There's no pass for Trump RE: what he said or did. He needs to put the issue to rest of risk having his campaign fried. What Bill Clinton did does not excuse him. References to Bill only serve to point out precedent that people are far too willing to ignore the past behavior and retain those folks in office if it's their own party. Be that comparison as it may, what Trump said was still stupid and I'm not going to pull my punches for that. Trump's mentality always seems to be that any publicity is good publicity. That mentality he'll find out doesn't apply so cleanly in a political arena.

The repercussions Bill had to deal with were obviously different since he was a sitting 2nd term president at the time. If a comparison is to be elaborated, then the comparable to his case is the partisan lean in the impeachment proceedings that were carried out during that time. Which would suggest at the very least the democrats in congress didn't see it as enough of an issue to move the proceedings ahead. His approval ratings after the scandal would indicate that voters, didn't have much to say about his activities either at the time. Hence my point of the double standard.

 

[Stacko]

[IMGw=640]http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u492/rfstack/000000_69.jpg[/IMGw]

 

[steve s]

How about this for a scenario...]
.
.
.
Is there any fatal flaw in that scenario? Not talking about the two above names specifically, but the general concept.

Trump's diehard supporters would probably vote for him just to spite the GOP.

Steve S

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I'm not sure whether the nation would have been best served by removing Clinton from office.

In hindsight, I think it would have. Not for anything Clinton did, but it would have given Gore a chance to change his cold-oatmeal image and not lose his second term to Bush, and not have gotten us into a poorly-conceived and ultimately failed power grab in Iraq.

 

[acbytesla]

How about this for a scenario...

Trump is pressured to drop out of the race and does so, perhaps seeing it as a way to avoid the humiliation of a big loss.

The Republican Party begins a process to affect a write-in campaign.

They could select Mike Pence or Paul Ryan or someone else.

All Republican voters would be urged to write in the party's choice.

I think that could actually be a winning strategy. I would never vote for Trump but would for Ryan. I don't currently know enough about Pence to make an informed decision.
Is there any fatal flaw in that scenario? Not talking about the two above names specifically, but the general concept.

Yep. A succesful national write in campaign? Borderline impossible.

There have been successful write in campaigns. Most for primary elrctions. But the problem is that you are dealing with a myriad of 50 different State election laws. Some which require a write in candidate to be registered well ahead of the election. Then there is the issue of other people with the same name. How does the people counting ballots know which Marco Rubio in the country you're referring to? Some of this sounds silly but nevertheless are issues.

Also, depending on how they are politically inclined, some jurisdictions make it easy and others make it much harder. For example in some places, they have allowed candidates to providing voters with stickers they could affix to a ballot instead of writing a name. In other places that would make the ballot invalid.

But beyond all that, I can't I see the GOP getting it together quick enough.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Trump's diehard supporters would probably vote for him just to spite the GOP.

Steve S

Probably.

Unless there was a strong, clear endorsement by Trump of the selected candidate. Even then...

If this whole fiasco was, in fact, foreseen in that pre-announcement phone call between Bill Clinton and Trump, maybe it's all going exactly according to plan.

 

[Cain]

How about this for a scenario...

Trump is pressured to drop out of the race and does so, perhaps seeing it as a way to avoid the humiliation of a big loss.

The Republican Party begins a process to affect a write-in campaign.

They could select Mike Pence or Paul Ryan or someone else.

All Republican voters would be urged to write in the party's choice.

I think that could actually be a winning strategy. I would never vote for Trump but would for Ryan. I don't currently know enough about Pence to make an informed decision.

Is there any fatal flaw in that scenario? Not talking about the two above names specifically, but the general concept.

I'm sure someone else already posted last's cold open for SNL. I loved the part where a solemn reporter asked if Trump should drop out of the race and Kate McKinnon's Clinton reaches out to the camera in panic, "No, no, no, no! Give him a shot."

 

[quadraginta]

Absolutely, now how about we talk about Trump openly claiming to have bribed politicians, or maybe his fraud trial? Or attacking a Gold Star family? Hey about the fact that the Russian Ambassador to the UN felt the need to rush to his defence when he was criticized for his racist/xenophobic remarks? Is he going to 'build the wall', and who is going to pay for it? How about his super secret plan to beat ISIS, or his open suggestion he wouldn't support some of the NATO allies against Russia? Is he still planning to ban all Muslims entering the US or just subject them to 'extreme vetting'? Would he allow the water boarding of prisoners and other methods of torture? How about his plan to rip up all those trade deals the US signed?

Yeah, well ...

Aside from that.

That's all just nitpicking, anyway. We need to focus on the really important stuff.

EMAILS!!! BENGHAZI!!! BILL!!!

Oh, wait.

Maybe Bill isn't such a good example after all.


===================================


Maybe Trump's best strategy tonight would just be to keep hollering;

"WRONG!!! EMAILS!!! BENGHAZI!!!"

over and over again at every opportunity and not say anything else at all.

It couldn't hurt him any worse than if he is allowed to compose answers to anything extemporaneously.

 

[quadraginta]

It is in my book. If you're already married.
And because of that, I won't be voting for Bill Clinton.

Me either.

 

[quadraginta]

Ah, so there's a clown connection.

This may explain a lot.

 

[Molinaro]

How about this for a scenario...

Trump is pressured to drop out of the race and does so, perhaps seeing it as a way to avoid the humiliation of a big loss.

The Republican Party begins a process to affect a write-in campaign.

They could select Mike Pence or Paul Ryan or someone else.

All Republican voters would be urged to write in the party's choice.

I think that could actually be a winning strategy. I would never vote for Trump but would for Ryan. I don't currently know enough about Pence to make an informed decision.

Is there any fatal flaw in that scenario? Not talking about the two above names specifically, but the general concept.

With only 30 days until the election does that give Trump's core supporters enough time to learn how to write?

 

[johnny karate]

References to Bill only serve to point out precedent that people are far too willing to ignore the past behavior and retain those folks in office if it's their own party.

Again, the distinction here is allegation vs admission.

Show me Clinton bragging about sexually assaulting women and Democrats rallying behind him, and I'll concede that there's a double standard.

Until then, it's a false equivalency.

 

[quadraginta]

I recommend reading this whole piece on bunkered up Donald but debate prep was tossed to the wind in favor of attempted damage control.

I especially liked this part;

Mr. Christie and Mr. Priebus told Mr. Trump that the situation with other Republicans was becoming dire. Other advisers assured Mr. Trump that attacking Mrs. Clinton over her husband’s behavior with women, and over reports that she had defended his behavior, would help rally Republicans again.
​

Yeah. That'll be sure fire. We can only hope he listens to them.

Did Trump actually work at finding advisors who are this stupid? I don't think random chance would explain it.


And in a related article linked to by this one there was this interesting tidbit;

In a brief telephone interview on Saturday, he shrugged off the calls to leave, saying he would “never drop out of this race in a million years.”
“I haven’t heard from anyone saying I should drop out, and that would never happen, never happen,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s not the kind of person I am. I am in this until the end.”

​

Yeah. Right. Of course he hasn't.

Is he even capable of being honest?

At all?

 

[slyjoe]

Okay and?

What are our jaws supposed to drop at the possibility that Clinton is using this for political gain?

So now Hillary can pull some skullduggery that can force the other party to nominate a candidate against their will.

Jesus why is this woman even running for President instead of just seizing dictatorship over the entire globe? She's' a one woman Illuminati.

So wait Hillary Clinton might be using this to her political advantage. *Shocked face* Oh dear someone get me some smelling salts before I pass out from the vapors and need half a white Valium while I lie down on my fainting couch.

I'll take the dirty political skullduggery over the insane racist sexual assaulter.

We'll deal with the system that left these two turds as only choice later but for now I'll go for the one that polishes up better and doesn't grab women in the kitty cat.

This indicated to me she's a better politician than sometimes given credit for. My post didn't really have anything to do with the latest crap from Trump.

 

[slyjoe]

Isn't that a poll of folks who haven't left the Republicans already because of Trump? The problem is stopping the bleeding, not checking whether the remaining blood wants to stay.

No, if you read the article even Democrats were in there. I think it was likely voters.

 

[CapelDodger]

And I'll nitpick the bits you missed: elephants don't rut (that's deer), and nor do they have a season (ie they all come into oestrus at variable times throughout the year). [/nitpick]

It's in my nature to walk deep into doo-doo from time to time.