Is Clinton a shoo-in for becoming president?

No! And, no one should be saying it. That type of talk can mean people don’t bother to vote. It’s irresponsible journalism.

No. Clinton is not a shoo-in for becoming president.

Far from it. Trump started out as a running gag and steadily built momentum until he became the Republican candidate.
Guess what? Trump is now a legitimate candidate for President of the United States.

When I comes down to it, there may very well be more people that dislike Clinton than dislike Trump. So it becomes a battle for the middle ground. Neither candidate has enough of a core of voters to easily take the election.

In the land of never-say-never people are eating a lot of crow.
I once thought pigs would fly before I would vote for Clinton.
I once thought pigs would fly before I would vote for Trump.
Six months from now I have to decide who disgusts me least. If you take that bet now, you are a fool.
The key questions now are:
Can Trump campaign for something instead of against someone?
How do the VP’s stack the tickets?

No one’s a shoo-in. Trump has been underestimated so far in this election cycle: I wouldn’t take any punditry as a given. And the Bernie fanatics may give it to him if they walk.

There are a lot more stupid people in this country than anyone realizes. After all, Bush got re-elected to a second term.

@janbb: “And the Bernie fanatics may give it to him if they walk.”

“walk”

That’s an interesting verb to use. I’m sure you’ve considered the fact that many of Sanders’ supporters are not Democrats, right?

Anyway, we’ve been told by the Clinton campaign that – despite the polling and Clinton’s inability to appeal to independents – that Clinton has the best chance of beating Trump. So, we’ll have to see how correct that Democratic party is. There are six months left.

No-one has ever had a disapproval rating as high as Clinton and been elected president. Let’s hope she’s indicted and drops out, allowing Bernie to clinch it with the super delegates. It’s sad she cares more about what’s best for Hilary than what’s gives the Democratic party the best chance to defeat Trump.

What @gorillapaws said^^

Hillary as nominee is Trumps only long shot at winning

I agree with Gorilla/Cruiser

@gorillapaws , Clinton is only in second place in terms of disapproval ratings of major party presidential candidates. Trump beats her out in that category.

Speaking of odds, they’re shortening daily.

Shaun King’s article yesterday outlines a few concerns that Clinton supporters should have with a Clinton vs Trump election.

Hillary Clinton is perhaps the worst possible Democratic candidate who could ever run against Donald Trump. I sincerely believe he could beat her in the general election.

That is from @DoNotKnowMuch‘s link, posted above. Highlighted for the link-adverse.

I’m trying to decide what toppings I’m going to need for my popcorn. Plain salt and butter is going to get boring after a summer of watching this

Given the choice between Clinton and Drumpf, I’ll pick Clinton any day. Unless we want 4 years of Trump, people will need to vote for Clinton (if she’s the Dem candidate). Unless we want abortion rights and labor laws and all other things we tend to take for granted to go out the window, we need to vote for whomever the Dem candidate is, even if we don’t consider them perfect.

“President Trump” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Get used to it because that’s what’s going to happen.

“Let loose the dogs of war…”

Trump is too good with his alienation linguistics. He’s a master. Virtually every sound bite I hear from him now is a repetitive hypnotic line “She’ll make a terrible president. She’s not a good president…”.

This is standard cult leader tactics 101… Programing the followers with desired message so much that it becomes engrained within their thinking process.

Trump is really playing some fairly advanced mind science right now. Hillary cannot compete with that as long as she takes the high road with indirect references and hope talk of what this country needs. Trump tactics are far more advanced and insidious. He must have extremely good coaches from the advertising and legal realms. Every great cult leader uses the same methods.

@gorillapaws “Let’s hope she’s indicted and drops out”

Indicted for what?

I don’t think she is.

Neither Trump nor Clinton is a shoo-in to be elected. The only sure thing is, it’s going to be an unprecedentedly (and unpresidentially) nasty six months.

P.S. May I respectfully suggest we all be very cautious about Web stories we read and repeat? ;-)

It’s like a macabre tale of a sadistic genie who offers the masses 3 stark, horrifying “wishes”

1) Cancer
2) Heart failure
3) Isolated in a sound proof chamber & forced to listen to Celine Dion tracks at full blast

Choose wisely eeh-merry-ka…choose wisely

For the first time in my life I’m actually nervous about an upcoming election…..I think I’m for Bernie, but I know his policies are going to shake people up, even those who vote for him. I don’t think everyone understands what it will really take to implement them. I don’t think I even fully understand, but I’m betting income taxes will go up to about 40%.

@Dutchess_III – Taxes will go up much higher than that with Bernie. Hell, they’re already at 39.5% and state income tax takes them much higher. 75% is more like it. Not to mention the exodus of jobs and industry. Free stuff is not the panacea many think it is.

Despite her having terrible approval ratings, being widely reviled, and being a divisive figure—Trump is all of that and worse.

I would say that she is an overwhelming favourite if not a shoo-in. It’s just such a shame that the nomination selection process is so undemocratic and that the media coverage is so biased toward the establishment candidate who supports the status quo.

I think a lot of voters will be going out to vote more out of spite for the other candidate rather a sincere preference for the one they do vote for.

“taxes will go up ”

This statement is nonsensical, and is specifically designed (as in: those who use it are intentionally trying to manipulate and deceive) to confuse. The same goes for “taxes will go down”. It depends on how much you earn. I highly suspect you’re not earning enough to be concerned – even if you were only concerned about your own income.

@Dutchess_III: “I don’t think I even fully understand, but I’m betting income taxes will go up to about 40%.”

And if you were interested in learning about the tax rates he’s interested in proposing, you could visit his website…

Higher Income Tax Rates for the Richest Americans.
The overall impact of this personal income tax plan would be to make sure that the wealthiest 2.1 percent of households in America pay their fair share.

This plan would replace the top three income tax rates (33%, 35%, and 39.6%) with more progressive rates:

- 37% on income between $250,000 and $500,000.

- 43% on income between $500,000 and $2 million.

- 48% on income between $2 million and $10 million. (In 2013, only 113,000 households, just 0.08 percent of all taxpayers, had income between $2 million and $10 million.)

- 52% on income of $10 million and above. (In 2013, only 13,000 households, just 0.01 percent of taxpayers, had income exceeding $10 million.)

@Jaxk Government expenditure is not constrained by tax receipts.

The US has one of the lowest tax burdens of any indusutralised nation. The tax to GDP has barely risen since the 1940s—yet the top marginal rate used to be over 90%.

Basically, there’s no reason for Sanders to raise the overall tax burden to implement some his plans. What he could do is to shift the burden to the rich—and that would lower taxes for those on low and middle incomes.

Bernie’s plan for modernising and renovating infrastructure and transport systems seems like it would have the exact opposite effect of creating an exodus of jobs—but rather would create a lot of demand for new jobs.

@DoNotKnowMuch I came to that conclusion by looking at the tax rates of other countries that have “free” education, health care, etc. such a Sweden.

Just curious, was your comment, ” I highly suspect you’re not earning enough to be concerned” meant to be an insult?

@Dutchess_III: “Just curious, was your comment, ” I highly suspect you’re not earning enough to be concerned” meant to be an insult?”

Hell no! Sorry. I meant that most people that I know that have resisted any attempts on raising taxes on upper-income earners sometimes fear that they fall into that category. Since there is very little talk about income and class in the U.S., I have met people who only make $80k and thought Obama was going to come after them because they were “rich”.

And I’d also like to add that taxes (real, progressive taxation) are not a bad thing, in my opinion. It’s one of those things that people generally support. They may complain about the IRS or how much they have to pay, but they certainly enjoy the programs that are made possible by taxation (k-12, police, fire, roads, etc).

OK @DoNotKnowMuch. Thanks for the ‘splantion. I was just trying to figure that one out. :D

Also, I’m OK with taxes going up, if it’s for the betterment of the overall good. I don’t get people who post stuff like, “There WAS no “income tax” in 1900 and people still got FREE roads, FREE education….” Ok, dumbasses. Because they took turns housing and feeding the poor teachers, and people pretty much created roads just by use. Military is another story.

The President does not raise or lower taxes. Congress does. Constitution. Article 1 Section 8.

So any presidential candidate who says they’re going to do this or that to taxes is just participating in political theater.

@DoNotKnowMuch – The idea that we can spend more than we get in taxes has run it’s course. Obama has been doing that for 8 years now and we are coming close to an economic collapse. Cintinuing to spend beyond our means is simply not sustainable. Taxing the top 1% or top 5% won’t pay for our current spending let alone the expansive spending Bernie wants. About half of our tax revenue already comes from income and corporate taxes much more than most European countries where they average about 34% of revenue from income and corp taxes. Driving that figure higher won’t reduce taxes on anyone since the lower 50% of income already don’t pay any income tax.

The idea that government can simply put everyone to work is crazy at best. That 90% tax rate that many look back longing for was never really 90%. There were no state income taxes and the tax code was so full of loopholes that nobody paid it. It quickly getting to the point that somebody gets a dose of reality and the “give me free stuff and make someone else pay for it” crowd is going to drive us under.

@Jaxk The US has only run budget surpluses for 12 of the last 75 years. It’s not some new Obama policy, but standard practice in government finance. Deficit spending is how government puts new money into circulation. Without it—more money ends up being supplied by private banks, and that means an increase in private debt.

Government debt has practically no adverse macroeconomic effect. There is no such thing as “spending beyond out means” in terms of government finance. The only constraint on spending are the limits of real resources and labour—the productive capacity of a nation.

The top 1% in the US have accumulated more wealth than at any time since the Gilded Age—but somehow you think they have nothing to do with the supposed lack of money for other things.

Real corporate taxes in the US are some of the lowest in the world.

Those on low incomes don’t pay income tax because they have low incomes. This isn’t a sign of how the rich are graciously shouldering the burden of social spending, but rather an indication of how vastly larger their incomes are, and how vastly more wealth they have accumualted when compared to the poorest 50%.

”. . . the “give me free stuff and make someone else pay for it” crowd is going to drive us under.”

Hardly. Spending on health and education has positive externalities—it means people can get on with fulfilling their potential to a greater extent, and contributing to everyone’s cultural, material, and intellectual enrichment. Investing in infrastructure, moderning it, making it more energy efficient, and ecologically sustainable—increases productive capacity, makes travel quicker, lowers pollution, creates demand for more high skilled jobs.

It’s your wrong-headed right-wing economic and political thinking that is just empirically wrong. Theoretically wrong. Empirically wrong. Illogical. Just wrong, wrong wrong. It also seems to not matter how wrong it’s proven to be time and time again—you’ll be back to double-down on it. True believers to the end.

@Jaxk Obama and Bush. We have been doing it for 12 years, not 8. So far, I don’t really hear any candidates talking a lot about the deficit.

Bernie is making expensive promises he has no intention of keeping, or even the ability to do so if he really wanted to.

Nothing about this election has been predictable.

@Kropotkin – The idea that the national debt has no impoact on our economy is so totally naive that it’s hard to address. Currently our debt is so high that we are borrowing money just to make the interest payments and the interest is almost zero. If we were to raise interest rates by 5% (still very low by historical standards) our debt would grow by $85 Trillion over the next 20 years. That growth is assuming all other expenditures remained the same. Some debt can be good but you need to have some scope on all this.

To make mattersd worse we already have obligations (things like social cecurity and medicare) that will drive up the debt by another $70 Trillion over the next 20 years. That means if we don’t change a thing in our spending we add $150 Trillion to our debt. There is already a move to change the international currency away from the dollar and that brings a whole new set of problems. Burying your head in the sand won’t change the path we’re on. Greece, Russia and many others have thought they could do the same thing but it didn’t work. Our current interest rates are killing those on fixed incomes, retirees and anyone saving for their their retirement which mean in the next 20 years there will be no money in you savings to retire and you’ll be on the government dole, once again increasing our debt.

Third world poverty is in our future if we take your advice and much worse if we take Bernie’s.

@JLeslie – We can go all the back to the 80s if you want. It doesn’t matter if we have some debt, it only matters when the debt becomes so big that we can’t make the interest payments. And just for the record, Trump talks about it all the time. The issue with NATO is all about our debt and his push to eliminate waste and abuse is about the debt. The balanced budget amendment is still lurking as well. Obama got his debt ceiling raise so it isn’t being screamed right now but the spending Bernie advocates does tend to bring the debt back into focus.

@Jaxk it’s kind of a shame we still have the bill for the Iraq war to pay, isn’t it?

@janbb: ”@Jaxk it’s kind of a shame we still have the bill for the Iraq war to pay, isn’t it?”

I agree.

@Jaxk Trump mentions the economy, but I haven’t heard him use the word deficit or national debt, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t said it. I don’t listen to politics a ton. I don’t question what you said about that. However, it seems to me, the media isn’t asking during the debates and on all these shows specifically about bringing the budget into balance. Maybe I’m missing it? I hear people talk about lower taxes, and wanting to know how Bernie is going to pay for his free tertiary education and healthcare for the masses, but I haven’t really heard much about the debt we already have.

@JLeslie – I saw a interview with Bret Baier withing minutes of my last post. The last question was specifically on the debt. Trump has said (apparently) that he could cut $20 Trillion from the debt in 8 years. That was the basis of the question. The last question is about 20 min into the posted video so you don’t have to listen to the whole thing to hear the question.

@janbb – Yes that would be nice but it wouldn’t solve the problem. The Iraq war is a very small fraction of our debt.

^^Thanks. I’ll look at it tomorrow.

No. The longer Bernie stays in the better the odds are that between him and Trump they may weaken her support and risk making her look like she won’t be a viable candidate. Now she has to battle two fronts. But I’m no professional politician. Just giving my opinion.

What @gorillapaws and @Cruiser said.

Closes eyes and clicks heels three times, “There’s no one like Bernie. There’s no one like Bernie… ”

Maybe not a shoo-in but a wise bet. Bernie needs to bow out when it looks like he can’t make a nomination otherwise he might cause the election to go to Trump, the worst of two evils. (Not saying Hillary is an evil, only adding that for those who think she is.) Shooting oneself in the foot is one thing, shooting everybody in the whole country in the foot is another.

Bernie knows he can’t win. He’s in it now to try to push the agenda and make the issues that are important to him and his supporters part of the political conversation.

@DoNotKnowMuch… what resolution was your link referring to?

^ Iraq

@DoNotKnowMuch Yes, she is a hawk and made a terrible mistake in voting for the Iraq War and many others. She is flawed – as is Bernie. But I am not willing to sacrifice the health and well-being of women and the poor by staying home or writing in Bernie’s name. It’s great to be all for noble ideas and revolution but not when your actions can destroy the lives of the people you claim to be supporting.

@janbb – I get the “lesser of two evils” argument. I’ve even been an advocate for this in the past. But I don’t think you understand that this election is not about which candidate I prefer. This is more about the future of this country, and a Clinton nomination guarantees the end of the Democratic party as anything worth saving. The future of the party would have been with people under 45 – not the 65+ supporters of Clinton. The Dems are done. They took an opportunity to grow and revitalize the Democratic party, making it an actual party with values, and they turned the other direction completely.

I’m not saying that voting for Clinton is completely out of the question for me. There are 6 months before I have to make that calculation. However, keep in mind that I am not a Democrat. I am not in a position that not voting for Clinton would be “walking away” or “withholding my vote” from Clinton. If I have been fighting against the Clintons for 20 years, it would be odd for me to suddenly vote for her.

So far, most of the lectures about how I should be voting for Clinton come from people who either supported Clinton, supported both, or are Democrats. If I am to come around at some point, it likely won’t be due to claims that my opposition to Clinton is due to be too idealistic. I’ve considered this for way too long for someone to take the “get off my lawn” approach to winning me over to the Democratic party. It will likely need to involve some addressing of my concerns about the loss of an opposition party to the Republicans. It will involve a legitimate analysis to ease my concerns about how Clinton and the Democrats have essentially embraced Citizens United decision and decided to become exactly what poor and working class Republicans fear most about them.

And while I continue to discuss this and work on my own decision, I think a couple of things are worthwhile to consider:

- The Clinton campaign has always claimed that they can beat Trump even without the “Bernie only” supporters. Lecturing us non-Dems or progressives about how we need to embrace the corporate Democratic party seems to undermine the party’s arguments. It should be unnecessary. Right?

- If you decided that Clinton really can’t win against Trump because she does so poorly with progressives, independents, and young people, wouldn’t it make sense to spend some of your time and money trying to convince the Democratic party that they are about to make a very big mistake? There is theoretically time to revolt and call for Clinton to drop out. Right?

- Do you honestly think that the Democratic party will survive a Clinton presidency? Do we see the anticipated Republican rebound? How can the DNC sleep at night?

- Clinton isn’t just “flawed” – she’s everything that I oppose about politics. Everything.

I can’t go back and forth much on this: I am neither an ardent Clintonista or an ardent Dem but I think the RNC is imploding more quickly than the DNC and I don’t believe that they necessarily can win without the Bernie supporters. To me, as I said above and will maintain, the damage in real terms to the poor and women of a Trump win trumps as it were, my idealism. Clinton is not going to drop out, Sanders is not going to be the nominee; let’s push as hard as we can from the left but not give the country and the world a demigogue. I do get where you’re coming from but I don’t agree.

But maybe we can agree on the necessity of electing people, like Elizabeth Warren, to the Senate and House.

@janbb: “But maybe we can agree on the necessity of electing people, like Elizabeth Warren, to the Senate and House.”

Yes! This is definitely something we agree on. I did support and vote for Warren.

The only person consistently beating Trump in the polls is Bernie. The Dems are making a huge mistake. It won’t be my fault if Clinton loses to Trump. I’m writing in Bernie’s name in Illinois.

@dammitjanetfromvegas The pitfall I see a large majority of voters making is a fixation on who would be president. It is the Senators and Congressmen AND Governors of your state that matter 20 times more that the Pres. you see on TV. They are the frontliners who will fight for what you need where you live. Don’t lose faith that your vote for President may end up being corrupted by a bizarre and senseless election when it really will fall on the soldiers of Senators and Congressmen to champion what is meaningful to the life you desire. Seriously ignore the media BS….but do not lose hope because you have many more votes that the one for President that will indeed have a more direct impact on your life.

@Cruiser

This is true, although the president does matter. The next president, for example, will almost certainly be replacing at least one, possibly more, Supreme Court justices. But yes, @Cruiser is correct in that far too few people pay little to no attention to elections that aren’t the president. Gubernatorial, Senate and Congressional elections don’t receive nearly the interest they should. And I wonder how many people even know who represents them in their state legislature.

I agree with you @Cruiser. Our schools are close to closing thanks to our Governor. We are safe for 2016/2017, but after that our children may have to consolidate and travel 17 miles. We currently live 2 blocks from the jr/sr high. We’ll be tremendously burdened if our schools close.

Further…my sidewalk that crosses my driveway is severely deteriorated and in need of repair…this is truly an important matter to me…do I write Obama to fix this or call my Alderman? I suggest you stand at your front door….look around you and consider which elected official will have the most impact on your surroundings….THEY are the ones you should be concerned about and closest too. IMO everyone should be on a first name basis with their mayor and thank them or give them a piece of their mind. And if you have never written your Congressman or Senator you are asleep at the wheel and have zero right to bitch about the current state of affairs.

@Cruiser: GA. Someone on here a few years ago wrote about a parking issue in front of her house. She lived near a college and the college kids were parking in front of her house and she couldn’t find parking. I responded that this is why people should vote for their local politicians and get to know who their local politicians are. That way, when the constituents need something, they know their elected officials and make sure the officials know they vote. When people say they don’t vote because it makes no difference, here’s an example of how it does make a difference.

@Cruiser damn right

@criuiser. Funny you should write the mayor thing. I am going backpacking with my mayor later this year.

@Rarebear I think that is cool! Was he/she a friend before being mayor?

Our mayor is the father of one of our daughter’s friends and he has been our daughter’s softball coach for the past two years. He’s the best coach she’s had.

Well, Rick’s brother was a mayor for years and years before health problems laid him out.

Looks like Clinton and Trump are tied in national polling at the moment.

Yes, but it is the electoral college votes that count.

@DoNotKnowMuch It was an online survey which, according to fivethirtyeight, are very poor quality. Don’t read too much into it.