Re: Is Donald Trump Buying the Republican Nomination?
NoNukes writes:
I don't believe the wealthy should be allowed to pour as much money as they want into a political campaign, whether their own or someone else's.
I don't like the idea either. But I might like some of the possible fixes even less. I cannot comment on a proposal that you haven't made. Do you have a proposal?
I thought that *was* a proposal. Maybe you're asking if I have a proposal that takes into account the concerns you listed later in your post? If so, no, I don't.
Maybe it's less a proposal and more a goal. Maybe I should say that our goal should be to make it impossible or at least much more difficult for the very rich to pervert the political process. Right now they're running roughshod over the whole thing. Not that they haven't in the past, but it's worse now, and it goes beyond politics. The repeal of Glass-Steagall, the Supreme Court position that money is speech, special laws that free the rich from significant taxation, they all help grant the rich advantages beyond the hoi polloi that they shouldn't have and that they certainly don't need given they already have money.
Yeah, I think you guys are full of shit. Money can't buy elections.
Well, that kind of gives the lie to where you just a few messages ago claimed, "I'm not being flippant, I'm just completely ignorant of political processes." Suddenly you're absolutely certain of your knowledge of the election process.
But then you can't even be consistent, as here you state the opposite belief that the wealthy can control politics:
Has there ever been a point in time in this country where politics wasn't run by wealthy people?
It was obvious before that you were just being a nuisance and wasting people's time, and this just makes it more obvious. Wasn't it you who recently said you thought web anonymity important so that you could be a dick without people knowing who you were? Ah, yes, here it is, Message 27.
This isn't really a reply to your post, it's just that since you've attempted to answer the question I think I should try to chime in with my own view, so here goes.
Focusing just on legal and above board approaches, elections can only be effectively contested by those with sufficient money for advertising, events and organization. Money doesn't guarantee electoral success, but lack of money often assures defeat.
Television advertising, which is very expensive, often plays a significant role in electoral success at the state and federal level. Local organizations can also be very influential, and when volunteers are lacking then money can help a great deal in creating a critical mass of local support.
This is why money is so important. Apparently just putting ads on the air and feet on the ground can generate a great deal of support that would otherwise never happen. Political campaigns have become too much a battle of ads and doorbells, and since money is required to make this all possible it becomes more a battle of money than of ideas. We need to change that.
A couple of your recent posts have very long quote sections. Could you make your arguments in your own words, providing links and short quotes for support?
Just a friendly request from a fellow participant, I'm not moderating this thread.
My prediction: Donald Trump and the Republican Party will make nice before the convention, though there will be many individual Republicans who refuse to have anything to do with him.
Locally in my own state of New Hampshire Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte says she will not be attending the convention. I like Kelly most of the time - a fair number of her votes seem sensible rather than political, but get a load of this piece of verbiage from a recent statement:
quote:As she’s said from the beginning, Kelly plans to support the nominee. As a candidate herself, she hasn’t and isn’t planning to endorse anyone this cycle, said Liz Johnson, communications director for Kelly for New Hampshire.
Johnson said the senator is not endorsing Trump.
Ayotte supports but does not endorse Donald Trump? Uh, okay.
Many Republicans currently touching Trump with ten foot poles will get much closer as the election approaches, but probably not Ayotte. She's in a tight contest with current Democratic governor Maggie Hassan.
quote:Mrs. Clinton has vowed that barring any threats to national security, she would open up government files on the subject, a shift from President Obama, who typically dismisses the topic as a joke. Her position has elated U.F.O. enthusiasts, who have declared Mrs. Clinton the first E.T. candidate. ... She has said in recent interviews that as president she would release information about Area 51, the remote Air Force base in Nevada believed by some to be a secret hub where the government stores classified information about aliens and U.F.O.s.
In a radio interview last month, she said, I want to open the files as much as we can. Asked if she believed in U.F.O.s, Mrs. Clinton said, I don’t know. I want to see what the information shows. But, she added, There’s enough stories out there that I don’t think everybody is just sitting in their kitchen making them up.
Throughout history there have been claimed sightings of the favorite denizen of then popular culture. Today it's UFO's, in the past it's been dragons, angels, ghosts, witches, whatever. We've studied our own solar system well enough to know that Earth is it when it comes to intelligent life, and possibly any life at all. The imponderable vastness of the universe means that even if there were other life out there, it could never get here. E.T. ain't here, he ain't ever been here, he ain't ever gonna be here.
quote:In fact, Mrs. Clinton had been briefed. She was prepped by her campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, who is not only a well-respected Washington hand, having served as a top adviser to Mr. Obama and President Bill Clinton, but is also a crusader for disclosure of government information on unexplained phenomena that could prove the existence of intelligent life outside Earth.
The time to pull back the curtain on the topic is long overdue, Mr. Podesta wrote in his foreword for the 2010 book UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record by Leslie Kean, an investigative journalist.
The same government that can't keep anything secret has been hiding aliens for over half a century? I don't think so. This is conspiracy theory nuttiness.
Trump's primary drawing card is that he talks straight instead of in political-speak. It's refreshing when a politician talks to the same reality everyone else sees. Trump speaks to the real concerns of everyday people. He's a populist, and a darn good one.
But it isn't as if we haven't seen populists before. The problem they tend to share is that the qualities that make them so appealing are not ones that lend themselves to governing. Many of Trump's ideas would make good premises for movie plots - they're things we'd like to see just to see what would happen, like building 30-foot walls, devaluing our debt, dictating policy to allies, etc.
Trump *is* ignorant (on a grand scale) of things political, but he is obviously brilliant and a quick study. We'd have to hope that these qualities come to the fore in a Trump presidency, but given the slow gait at which he's morphing into a campaigner who isn't alienating huge portions of the voting populace (woman, Latinos, Muslims, blacks, military veterans, etc.) there seems little reason to expect it.
My prediction: Donald Trump and the Republican Party will make nice before the convention, though there will be many individual Republicans who refuse to have anything to do with him.
Yesterday on CNN:
quote:Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan concluded their highly anticipated meeting Thursday amid signals that the Republican Party will work to piece itself together after a fractious primary.
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