MAINSTREAM COOLER - For those who believe mainstream contemporary facts.

[W. Niederhut]

13 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Trump chooses a vice president who would do what Mike Pence wouldn’t (msn.com)

Yeah, Ron, this is the heart of the matter.

Trump picked a fellow sociopath who would even violate the Constitution as a criminal accomplice.

Mike Pence spent four years lying for Trump, but he wasn't willing to violate the Constitution on January 6th.

[Kirk Gallaway]

This Trump assassination attempt, is terrible news, apart from the false equivalency.

Trump is playing it to the center more after the Biden collapse. If we come out of the convention with Trump looking to calm the atmosphere. Biden's path way to beating Trump will be almost non existent. The usual Dem bitching about winning the popular and being robbed of the Presidency is for losers, and is getting more tired every time, considering the Dems never reach the amount of power to change the electoral college.

This is not satisfactory to me.  We would be giving up Democracy.  We'll applaud Biden closing in at the end, and his taking the popular vote and then bitching about losing.

The other side of going in with Biden is the best he could win with is a squeaker in the historical closest election in the electoral college that will set off the Trump claims of stolen election and drive us at least to an uprising, which I suppose I was hoping we might get out of our system and put the foot down on these crazies, as might have been done 4 years ago, but is not at all desirable.

"There are graveyards filled with men who thought they were indispensable."

Charles De Gaulle

 

Biden said when Stepanopoulus asked him about his losing in the polls, that "my polls don't show that". Either the people around him have not  told him the electoral college truth, or Biden has convinced himself in his hubris that he's the only one who could single handedly reverse all these issues with "the truth" and the American people will respond because they are just  too decent to elect a fascist,  just like some here believe.But really we'll be hoping for a scandalous communique from Trump to Putin to come out, or we'll be like lambs going to slaughter.

 

The problem now is this incites a "we gotta go with out guy" mentality, even though Biden's a loser,  and what's worse is, if the Republicans do play it presidentially and calm the waters, they may end up being so far ahead, no other young candidate who my have aspirations for 2028, will now get involved under the perceived circumstance of Joe being forced out, which only becomes a greater task, the longer Joe holds out.*

So much for Democracy. ---JMO

 

*That would work best for Harris as the money transition's smooth, and without being VP she probably can't go anywhere on her own. 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

[deleted]

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

8 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

That's a bad pick.

Marco Rubio would have actually helped the GOP ticket. Nikki Haley might have even allowed them to win.

This does not.

 

I don't know much about elections, but J.D. Vance does help Trump win swing state Ohio. Right?

 

[Matt Allison]

17 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I don't know much about elections, but J.D. Vance does help Trump win swing state Ohio. Right?

Once upon a time Ohio was a solid blue state, but after the shift of manufacturing jobs to China and other overseas countries, Ohio became a much more angry state, and was ripe for the taking by a xenophobic, populist candidate such as Trump. Sadly, it is unlikely most MAGA Ohioans are familiar with the manufacturing jobs Biden has returned to the U.S. or aware at all of such gamechangers like the CHIPS Act.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act

So it is no longer a swing state. Pure red.

[Sandy Larsen]

56 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Biden's path way to beating Trump will be almost non existent.

 

Kirk,

You talk about electoral paths to victory like it's second nature to you. It's anything other than second nature to me, so I'll defer to your wisdom for a moment.

You say that it's looking like Biden's path to victory is narrow at best, and now is looking almost non-existent.

Here's are my questions for you: Who would you choose as the best alternative to Biden? What would the electoral numbers/path look like for that candidate?

 

 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

7 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Once upon a time Ohio was a solid blue state, but after the shift of manufacturing jobs to China and other overseas countries, Ohio became a much more angry state, and was ripe for the taking by a xenophobic, populist candidate such as Trump. Sadly, it is unlikely most MAGA Ohioans are familiar with the manufacturing jobs Biden has returned to the U.S. or aware at all of such gamechangers like the CHIPS Act.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act

So it is no longer a swing state. Pure red.

 

Well that's interesting.

Did this phenomenon happen to a lot of states due to the loss of jobs to China? It seems like it would have happened to most states where manufacturing is big. Which I thought was most states. (Actually, from watching the news years ago, I recall that the Midwestern states were the ones that depended most on manufacturing.)

Over the last twenty years, the price of healthcare and now the price of housing have gone up so much that I have found myself thanking the Chinese for the low price of household goods. (Literally, under my breath, I have thanked China many times.)

Now the effect of Chinese trade is coming back to bite me.

 

[Matt Allison]

14 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Did this phenomenon happen to a lot of states due to the loss of jobs to China?

Yes, but it hit places that relied almost exclusively on manufacturing like Ohio much worse. 

15 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I have found myself thanking the Chinese for the low price of household goods. (Literally, under my breath, I have thanked China many times.)

I have done the same thing. It has brought lower prices on many things the average American consumer would otherwise pay a lot more for.

[Matt Allison]

When it comes to worrying about Trump being elected, recall that Trump won in 2016 with 46.1% of the vote. In 2020 he lost when he received 46.6% of the vote. I consider that to be the height of his electoral popularity; his ceiling. 

This election I expect him to get approx 38-42% of the vote, Can he win with that? There is only one way:

 

[Matt Allison]

I think it's pretty obvious that a clear violation of the Logan Act has been occurring with Trump. After Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban visited Moscow on July 5th to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine with Putin, Orban then jetted to Florida to discuss the exact same thing with Trump.

Russia is desperate for the war to end. Ukraine is wearing down Russia with the use of sophisticated drones that Russia can not defend against, and soon Ukrainian pilots will be flying F-16s in the conflict. Russian casualties now number in the hundreds of thousands, and their economy is wrecked. They have essentially gotten themselves into a quagmire that will destroy the country in much the same way as the Soviet-Afghan war did in the 1980s.

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Kirk,

You talk about electoral paths to victory like it's second nature to you. It's anything other than second nature to me, so I'll defer to your wisdom for a moment.

You say that it's looking like Biden's path to victory is narrow at best, and now is looking almost non-existent.

Here's are my questions for you: Who would you choose as the best alternative to Biden? What would the electoral numbers/path look like for that candidate?

 

 

 

 

It's a good question Sandy. The quick answer is any one of a few but Biden. They would all do better. There's enough time to do debates and discussion and polling, and see which are better and don't make serious mistakes, but as long as Biden is obstructing, we won't get the necessary  exposure.  The quicker Biden steps out if the way, the greater variety of candidates we could have.

The novelty of this, is the only thing that could top this coronation, after a failed assassination attempt.

As for the fairness of Biden leaving office. I first realized in 1980, when Reagan was elected that I don't have a clear idea at all on who the American public is. I revised my expectation and started to deal with those limitations.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

12 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Here's are my questions for you: Who would you choose as the best alternative to Biden? What would the electoral numbers/path look like for that candidate?

12 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

It's a good question Sandy.

 

I take it from your non-answer that you really don't know who would do better than Biden. You'd have to have debates, etc. first, from which to estimate an electoral count/path.

Well that makes sense.

What your response tells me is that if your judgement is that Biden had any chance at all, no matter how small, the best bet would be for Biden to continue running. Because otherwise we haven't any idea whatsoever if any of the other candidates would do any better.

At least that is the case if we use your electoral count/path system.

Given that Allan Lichton has a proven track record, I think I'll stick to his advice. He said after the debate that it would be a mistake to switch candidates at that point. But we've since had the Trump assassination attempt. The outcome of that may change his prediction.

 

12 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

The quick answer is any one of a few but Biden. They would all do better.

Oh, by the time I finished reading you post I'd forgotten about your "quick answer."

I don't buy it.

I mean, how could you possibly know that any of a few potential candidates you have in mind would beat Biden? You're obviously just guessing... what happened to your electoral count/path system?

Sorry but now I'm questioning even that!

I'm going to stick with Lichton's method.

 

[Bill Fite]

just an observation:

1976: outsider Jimmy Carter wins over Dem senators and incumbent Pres

1980: outsider Ronald Reagan ('govt is the problem') wins over incumbent President - outsider Bush poses strongest challenge in primaries

1988: outsider Gov Dukakis vs outsider VP Bush (insider now?)

1992: outsider Gov Clinton wins over outsider Perot and insider VP Bush

2000: outsider Gov Bush wins over insider  VP/ Sen Gore

2008: fresh face (outsider?) Obama wins over insider Sen Clinton and insider Sen McCain

2016: Insider Sen/Sec of State/best cattle futures trader in history/most qualified candidate in history loses to Outsider Trump who defeated the entire Rep Deep Bench in primaries

2020: Insider Sen/VP Biden wins over Bernie and then Trump 

Does anyone else see a trend?   (yes some elections were skipped)

[Kirk Gallaway]

55 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I take it from your non-answer that you really don't know who would do better than Biden

My god! Sandy, so you lost me in my  first 2 sentences?.

Kirk: The quick answer is any one of a few but Biden. They would all do better.

This will make more sense if you remember what you just read.

 

59 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

What your response tells me is that if your judgement is that Biden had any chance at all, no matter how small, the best bet would be for Biden to continue running.

Where in the world did you get that assumption?  No, I'm going to break it to you gently Sandy.

I want Biden out! And there's some urgency! That could have gleaned from reading this.

Kirk: There's enough time to do debates and discussion and polling, and see which are better and don't make serious mistakes, but as long as Biden is obstructing, we won't get the necessary  exposure.  The quicker Biden steps out if the way, the greater variety of candidates we could have.

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I mean, how could you possibly know that any of a few potential candidates you have in mind would beat Biden?

Because Biden and Trump are the least popular 2 Presidential candidates in history! For example, I bet there are a lot of young people who would like to get more involved in politics just despising Biden's image  because he's so old, and he perfectly represents to them the deafness of the generation keeping them from assuming power, and that reason is also true for Trump as well as Trump being Trump! 

Ok, so you want specific names? I just assumed the standard names being bandied about, first the VP Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsome, Gretchen Whitmer and  Josh Shapiro. And the delegates decide at the convention, just like they did for almost 200 years.

We're seeing Harris go up now at just the anticipation of something different!

By all means name drop Allan Lichton, I even tried googling him and couldn't find anything, but if you're not even going to share his theory.  I do like his flow-thru tea bags!