The American Presidential Election thread 2012 aka PMSL at Seppos

[skully]

It's the Trump and Palin Republican show

"Donald Trump and Sarah Palin both continued their political tease over the weekend, rallying the faithful ahead of a potential - but by no means confirmed - run at the White House."

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On the Nooz tonight it seemed to suggest that Trump running as the Republican nominee (pending run-offs) in 2012 was a foregone conclusion. Hmm, what a weird country the USA is.

[Big Dog]

Yeah...not doing the Republican cause any good unfortunately.

[skully]

And Trump suggests that current US foreign policy is making the US a laughing stock? Imagine having him as the President?

[taipan]

And Trump suggests that current US foreign policy is making the US a laughing stock? Imagine having him as the President?

He has loads of apprentices.

[Fred Nerk]

We may as well have a good laugh now because either this is a gi-normous outrageous beat-up and it will be over by Friday, or it's not and then it will be no laughing matter at all.

[JGK]

Aye. The weirdest thing is that Trump could actually get up as he has the money and connections and celebrity.

Palin only has the celebrity (of sorts) and even that is diminishing every time she opens her mouth.

[Hass]

Neither Trump nor Palin will get anywhere near the Republican nomination.

The Tea Party nutters might be loud, but the Establishment still holds the most sway.

But their presence in the contest will only do the Republicans harm by forcing sane candidates like Mitt Romney to move closer towards 'the crazy'.

[JKLever]

How far can a man with a hairpiece as stupid as that get anyway?

[skully]

Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Ronald Regan got all the way to the top job.

[Allan D]

Trump seems to be getting his traction from embracing the cause of the "Birthers" who are the right-wing equivalent in nuttiness of the "Truthers" who believe that George Bush and the US Government not Al-Qaeda were responsible for the attacks on 9/11. The "Birthers" believe that Obama was not born in Hawaii as he claims but in either Kenya (then in 1961 still a British colony), his father's country, or Indonesia (where he lived for a time as a child), the native home of his stepfather (even though his mother had not yet married him) thus making him not entitled to US citizenship at the time of his birth and therefore ineligible to run for the Presidency (which restricts candidates to "native-born US citizens)

This is despite the fact that the "births" column of the local newspaper shows that Barack Hussain Obama was born on 4 August (a birthday he shares with the late Queen Mother) 1961 at the Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii which had become the 50th state of the Union two years previously. Even if this were not true the fact that his mother, Stanley Ann Obama nee Dunham, born in Wichita, Kansas, was undoubtedly a US citizen at the time of Obama's birth would have entitled Obama to US citizenship by inheritance.

Obama's opponent at the last President election, John McCain, was born in a military hospital in Panama in 1936 and George Romney, the father of Obama's likely opponent in 2012, who was a candidate for the Republican nomination in 1968, was born to American parents in the Mormon colonies in Mexico in 1907 but neither's eligibility to be candidates for the US Presidency was ever questioned to my knowledge.

Trump's importance lies not in the Republican primaries where, apart from Romney, he is the only candidate who could choose to be self-financing, but in his recently-announced threat to stand as a third-party candidate if he fails to win the Republican Party nomination. He would then act as a "spoiler" taking away votes mainly from the Republican candidate and allowing Obama to win as a minority candidate in much the same way as Ross Perot enabled Clinton to win only 43% of the vote in 1992.

Given Obama's present approval rating, the state of the economy and the current fiscal position of the US a Trump candidacy is probably Obama's best chance of re-election. The concentration on the "Birther" issue enables the Dems to portray Obama's opponents as "nutty" although there is equal nuttiness on their side with the "Truthers" whilst a Trump third-party challenge in the general election would enable Obama to focus on bringing out his base in order to secure victory.

Polls show that although Obama is unpopular and a majority think he does not deserve re-election the only two Republican candidates capable of defeating him are the former Governor of Massachussetts, Mitt Romney, and the former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, who both lost to John McCain in the contest for the Republican nomination in 2008. Both those candidates are running neck-and-neck with Obama in a general election campaign. Every other possible candidate, including Trump, would lose to Obama, despite the US' current economic difficulties, by a wide margin

Like most elections, not only in the US, but throughout the developed world, to be successful a candidate has to persuade not his own loyalists but the uncommitted, independent voters. It was this group Obama managed to persuade in the last Presidential election but with whom he is doing so badly (only 35% say they support him) at present. Obama therefore has two alternatives. He can either abandon his more ideological programmes and become more pragmatic seeking consensus and compromise in the national interest or he can portray his opponents as more extreme than he is.

Whilst I dismiss the "Birther" and the "Truther" conspiracy theories for the nonsense they undoubtedly are I think there is an even more subtle conspiracy afoot in the current candidacy of Donald Trump.

[Henry]

The Republicans are f*cked. To get back in the game, they'll have to distance themselves completely from the right wing Tea Party nutters. Perhaps even move more towards the centre-left.

[Allan D]

Polls: Republican Presidential Nomination 2012

Polls: Obama v. Republican candidates

[Allan D]

The Republicans are f*cked. To get back in the game, they'll have to distance themselves completely from the right wing Tea Party nutters. Perhaps even move more towards the centre-left.

Not quite. The Tea Party nutters enabled the Republicans to regain the House of Representatives which frames the Budget last November forcing Obama to moderate his spending proposals, although not sufficiently for the right but too much for the left. As long as the Republicans stick to fiscal issues and the state of the economy and put up a sensible candidate they stand a good chance in spite of a potential Trump third-party run.

[furriner]

Neither Trump nor Palin will get anywhere near the Republican nomination.

The Tea Party nutters might be loud, but the Establishment still holds the most sway.

But their presence in the contest will only do the Republicans harm by forcing sane candidates like Mitt Romney to move closer towards 'the crazy'.

Was speaking to a guy who's been a political activist here in the US since the 70s. He was talking about how candidates for the US Congress and Senate - Republicans and Democrats - are being forced to move to extremes.

Ironically it's because the candidates have to first contest with other people within their parties to get the ticket. And in those elections only the 'passionate', 'committed' people turn up (read mostly idiots, bigots, loonies). Stands to reason - not many people I know actually bother to vote for electing a candidate who will then stand for elections...so to speak.

With the result that the reasonable candidates on both sides can get winnowed out early. Unless they start to move closer to 'the crazy' as you put it.

[embee]

Is running a company so different to running a country?

Trump is a successful businessman ...mainly real estate and casinos but there are other interests as well ...On the little I watched of "The Apprentice" Trump did use his advisors very well which is what a political leader should do too

He may wear a shocking "Moreton" but he wouldnt be the first US president to do that ...and as for making a dick of himself on reality tv ...seen any of Reagan's movies

He couldn't be worse than dubya was portrayed as being ...

[Allan D]

Ironically it's because the candidates have to first contest with other people within their parties to get the ticket. And in those elections only the 'passionate', 'committed' people turn up (read mostly idiots, bigots, loonies). Stands to reason - not many people I know actually bother to vote for electing a candidate who will then stand for elections...so to speak.

With the result that the reasonable candidates on both sides can get winnowed out early. Unless they start to move closer to 'the crazy' as you put it.

There is some truth to that but at the same time the primary system winnowed out extreme candidates such as Howard Dean in 2004 and Ron Paul in 2008. More Presidential primaries are becoming "open" primaries where voters of both parties and none can vote.

The reason for the increasing ideological division between the two major parties along European lines (which did not exist in the past when the Democrats were divided between Northern liberals and Southern segregationists and the Republicans had a Rockefeller liberal wing) is the change in campaign financing and the increasing cost of elections forcing candidates to seek funds from their party machines and most committed supporters.

[furriner]

Allan, I should have made more clear - this is a discussion on the Presidential candidate, but I was speaking about the Senate and the Congress where it seems harder to winnow out the loons.

[Allan D]

Curiously in a country that celebrates capitalism and the free market as much as the US businessmen have not done particularly well in the political sphere, especially at Presidential level. Herbert Hoover who worked his way out of dire poverty to make a fortune as a mining engineer and was very successful as Commerce Secretary during the boom years of the 1920s proved hapless as President in the wake of the Wall Street Crash in 1929 and the ensuing economic depression.

On the other hand Harry Truman, whose venture into the retail business failed in that depression and who was declared bankrupt, proved to be, in the opinion of most commentators, a notable and successful President bringing an end to WWII, reviving Western Europe with the Marshall Plan, successfully challenging the Soviet blockade of Berlin and setting up NATO.

The last businessman to run a successful insurgent campaign along the lines of Trump was probably Wendell Willkie who won the Republican nomination in 1940 defeating the favourite, Robert "Mr Republican" Taft (who was to lose again to Eisenhower in 1952) despite previously having supported Roosevelt. However he went down to defeat by FDR in the general election.

Trump has mainly made his money from refurbishing buildings and selling them on. If success in business is to be a qualification for the White House then Mitt Romney, who has made an even larger fortune than Trump from turning around failing businesses, mainly in the manufacturing sector, and who turned around the 2002 Winter Olympics from a potential financial disaster into a considerable economic success, must surely rank as a worthier candidate

[Allan D]

Allan, I should have made more clear - this is a discussion on the Presidential candidate, but I was speaking about the Senate and the Congress where it seems harder to winnow out the loons.

Only if they are guaranteed election in the subsequent general election because of their party label. In a marginal district or swing-state the chances of a "loony" candidate being returned in the eventual election (in which all voters, not just those who have registered their party preference) is reduced rather than increased I would have thought and this was borne out by several results in the 2008 elections where several Democrats, such as Harry Reid in Nevada, held onto their seats against the trend because of the unsuitability of their opponents.

Another example of this is Joe Lieberman, who had been Gore's running-mate in 2000 (and who many believe, including McCain's daughter, should have been John 's running-mate in 2008 rather than Palin, despite the difference in party affiliation), who narrowly lost the Democratic primary for the US Senate seat in Connecticut in 2006 because of his support for the war in Iraq, mainly thanks to his wealthy opponent bussing in out-of-state students who qualified to vote by virtue of their college residency.

Lieberman was generally seen, even by those who disagreed with him, as a man of honesty and integrity who had worked hard for his state and so when he stood as an independent in the general election that year not only did more than half of the Democratic voters (most of whom had not voted in the previous primary) support him but the Republican vote collapsed in his favour too allowing him to be re-elected comfortably:

United States Senate Election in Connecticut 2006

The real reason for the greater success rate of "loony" candidates in primary elections is the differential turnout between primary elections where candidates of only one party are on offer and general elections where there are candidates of all parties and the large number of seats that do not change hands between the political parties.

In a swing seat a primary voter would have to balance his ideological preferences against the electability of the candidates on offer in the subsequent election. The selection of candidates by fee-paying activists behind closed doors as well as the similar number of "safe" seats has not prevented a similar number of "loony" candidates, in all parties, presenting themselves for election here, often successfully.

Before we sneer at the Seppos we should also note note that opinion polls in France are currently showing that Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, would top the poll in next year's (held in May) Presidential election. This would guarantee her a place in the final round of voting (which is between the top 2 candidates in the first round of voting). Despite what Alan "Postman Pat" Johnson may say, she may very well pick up votes from Socialist voters in a bid to defeat Sarkozy if their candidate is excluded as well as Sarkozy supporters if he were excluded so the chances of the National Front providing the next President of France is by no means insignificant. Mlle Le Pen makes Sarah Palin look like Julia Gillard.

[Gary 111]

If the Republican Party nominated Sarah Palin it would be a masterstroke. Obama would have no chance of getting elected with her running on the ticket.

[Allan D]

If the Republican Party nominated Sarah Palin it would be a masterstroke. Obama would have no chance of getting elected with her running on the ticket.

????? - Is this intended as a NSR trap?

[Bradman]

Obama's opponent at the last President election, John McCain, was born in a military hospital in Panama in 1936 and George Romney, the father of Obama's likely opponent in 2012, who was a candidate for the Republican nomination in 1968, was born to American parents in the Mormon colonies in Mexico in 1907 but neither's eligibility to be candidates for the US Presidency was ever questioned to my knowledge.

Actually Romney, Obama and McCain are just a few in a long line of potential presidents to have their status questioned. McCain even refused to produce a birth certificate in 2000.

Of the others Chester Arthur and Goldwater were the most prominent. Arthur suffering from claims he was born in Jamaica or some such place and Goldwater because he was born in some state that wasn't a state at the time of his birth.

I don't believe their Supreme Court has ever ruled one way or another on the term "natural born". (with any degree of finality anyway)

[Allan D]

Goldwater because he was born in some state that wasn't a state at the time of his birth

I presume you mean Arizona, which Goldwater represented in the US Senate for 30 years which was then Arizona Territory when he was born in Phoenix in January 1909, 3 years before it attained statehood, the last of the mainland 48 to do so. On that basis 8 out of the first 9 US Presidents were ineligible to run for office as they were natural-born British citizens since the United States did not exist at the time of their birth.

[Bradman]

Goldwater because he was born in some state that wasn't a state at the time of his birth

I presume you mean Arizona, which Goldwater represented in the US Senate for 30 years which was then Arizona Territory when he was born in Phoenix in January 1909, 3 years before it attained statehood, the last of the mainland 48 to do so. On that basis 8 out of the first 9 US Presidents were ineligible to run for office as they were natural-born British citizens since the United States did not exist at the time of their birth.

No the constitution grandfathered them in in the original clause. Much like the Truman clause in the 22nd ammendment.

[Allan D]

I stand corrected.

McCain, like Goldwater, was born in a territory (Panama Canal Zone) not a state but I presume this makes little difference to eligibility since that would also disqualify those born in the national capital, Washington D.C., where the inhabitants were ineligible to cast a ballot in Presidential elections until 1964. However as you say the Supreme Court has never issued a ruling on the issue and, imo, is unlikely to do so except in the most extreme case.

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