The gossip around Donald Trump’s VP announcement is probably the funniest and/or most terrifying thing you’ve heard this week. Donald Trump has had months to put together a shortlist of VP candidates, but I get the feeling that he and his people half-assed it until the last minute, threw together a list a few weeks ago, and then Trump just went with the guy he despised the least, which was Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana. Pence is a hardline conservative Republican with an appallingly terrible record – go here to see more about that.
First, Trump told media outlets that he would announce his VP on Friday. Then he postponed the announcement just hours after the tragedy in Nice, France. Trump announced Pence with a tweet on Friday anyway. On Saturday morning, Trump and Pence made their big, formal joint event and announcement. More on that in a moment. Completely legit media outlets are reporting that Trump had buyer’s remorse almost as soon as he called Pence to tell him that he was the guy on Thursday night. Sources claim Trump was trying to get out of it almost immediately. Which led to this tweet:
Look forward to introducing Governor Mike Pence (who has done a spectacular job in the great State of Indiana). My first choice from start!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2016
As many have pointed out, “My first choice from the start” is not something presidential candidates feel the need to say out loud if their VP choice really was the first choice. As in, don’t run if no one is chasing. As in, why bother lying about something like that? The Trump campaign also launched their new logo, which is absolutely obscene (and hilarious).
the Trump-Pence logo looks like a forbidden sex act that Pence would definitely not be OK with pic.twitter.com/sZxVv3E32h
— Matt Negrin (@MattNegrin) July 15, 2016
This logo accurately represents what Trump Pence will do to America. pic.twitter.com/HQisP8QVzb
— Rep. Alan Grayson (@AlanGrayson) July 15, 2016
Breaking the mattress of America. pic.twitter.com/M4Cq62YS2c
— Full Frontal (@FullFrontalSamB) July 15, 2016
About 24 hours after launching the Trump-penetration logo, the Trump campaign was already abandoning it. Amazing.
And then we finally get to the big press conference on Saturday in New York. Mike Pence flew in to New York and it was going to be his big debut on the national stage. If only Donald Trump could have just stopped talking about himself long enough to properly introduce Pence. If only the introduction song playing before Trump came out wasn’t the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” I’m not even joking. Trump came out and talked about himself for a while, even saying at one point, “One of the big reasons I chose Mike is party unity, I have to be honest.” He didn’t choose Pence for the good of the country, or because Pence a strong leader who would be ready to take on the presidency on Day 1. Trump chose Pence for petty political-party reasons. Here’s the speech:
Ezra Klein at Vox wrote one of the most scathing articles about this announcement – go here to read. Suddenly, it does feel like some in the media are starting to wake up from their dream-like state, realizing that this whole thing has become an utter nightmare. This whole VP-selection moment feels a lot like John McCain choosing Sarah Palin back in 2008. Not that Pence is Palin-esque (time will tell), but that Trump and his team half-assed one of the most important functions of a presidential campaign: to choose a competent, reasonable and thoroughly vetted vice presidential candidate. This is exactly what Trump will be like as president. When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I’m not trying to start no s$&&@ , but where was Donald’s third wife yesterday? I’m thinking she ran away from this Racist love fest coming together yesterday. Donald took 28 minutes to interduse his VP. AS usual, it’s all about the orange orangutan. The official word is, his wife missed the big announcement because she is practicing her speech for the convention. I’m saying there is trouble in paradise.
You’re right, I hadn’t noticed until you pointed it out, but it is weird. I saw pictures of Pence and his wife and daughter posing with Trump and all the junior Trumps, but no Melania. And the whole thing happened in Manhattan, where she lives! It’s not like she couldn’t stop practicing her speech for one hour.
She was getting a bikini wax and more fillers, obvs! As her skin tight clothes have shown us, she gets a full Brazilian. #missingmichellealready
I said the exact same thing, where was Melania, all of his kids, wifes were there, no sign of her, seemed strange to me too, but I thought the whole thing was half-baked anyway, definetely beleive those rumours about him changing his mind, he doesnt know what he is doing, the cracks are starting to show now.
Interduse? I seriously hope that was a joke. INTRODUCE!
Pardon, but I think “interdouche” here. Donald took 28 minutes to interdouche his VP.
I’ve noticed that she is absent at a lot of events where “the wife” would normally be and I think this is deliberate. The last time I saw her standing with him I couldn’t get over how completely dead behind the eyes she is. There is nothing going on in there. Ivanka seems to be the stand in for her.
His entire campaign is built on appealing to xenophobes… I feel they made a decision early on to keep attention focused away from Melania. I mean, how can you get the foreigner hating population behind you if you trot out your foreign wife?? Combine that with his misogyny? Yeah, she doesn’t matter anyway.
TP: toilet paper for America’s bunghole. Perfect for those two.
Omg, my boyfriend and I just had the most awesome, immature, 7th-grade cackle about that. The jokes write themselves with this one.
(Of course, none of us will be laughing if this ignoramus is elected in November.)
Oh my, that’s the best!!! That will be what I call them from now on! (It also does not help that I just watched Beavis & Butthead Do America again for the ninth time…. “I need TP! For my …” 😁😁
Awesome!
Yes yes yes. First thing that came to mind, along with a gif of the logo on a roll….
Whatever happens in November, at least half of America will be wildly, profoundly unhappy about the President. And realistically it’ll be more than half. I can’t see how either candidate will be able to make positive change at a time when we deeply need it.
Good news, people, I’m getting to vote in your election. A friend of mine in the US reckons he doesn’t care about politics and doesn’t usually bother to vote, so i’ve convinced him to put in a vote on my behalf.
Write in of Bernie or Jill Stein? Or Johnson?
Please don’t throw your vote away on a third party or a write in. I usually don’t like telling people how to vote, but elections are generally between two qualified people. Not this election. If I get stuck with a President Donald J. Trump I’m going to lose my f’in mind.
As the Republicans have moved further to the right the Democrats have moved right along with them. People need to think beyond election cycles and start looking at the big picture because lesserism has got America into the mess it is in now and under lessersim things will continue to get worse. The only way things are going to get better is if the Democrats stop talking the progressive talk and start walking the walk. The Democrats need to have more progressive polices. So if bleeding votes to the Greens means that they’re going to lose to Trump this time around then so be it. Maybe that’ll be the kick up the ass they need to get their act together. However, if that does eventuate it won’t be the fault of the people who voted for the Greens or stayed at home, it’ll be Hillary Clinton’s fault for not being more appealing. I sincerely hope that all the disenfranchised Sanders’ supporters get behind Jill Stein.
@melly. Please do not tell 3rd party or write ins they are throwing a vote away. All votes count. As another poster said — if HC isn’t elected it is her own damn fault for not getting enou votes to win. Ditto DT. It isn’t the fault,of people who vote their mind and values and conscience on a 3rd party or write in. There is no shame in doing so, and no one owes you an explanation for doing so either.
You vote your choice and allow,others do to likewise without trying to shame them in the process. It is part and parcel to our democracy.
Dangles – bad pun coming -, your vision is upside down. I happen to live in this country and I don’t want to take a gamble on a disastrous 4 years just to teach the Dems a lesson. No, thanks.
your protest votes for someone who cannot and will not win count in that you are actively allowing the country to move even further to the right and undermining every single one of those progressive values you claim to hold dear to be trampled on. Take one look at the GOP platform and tell me that you seriously think that allowing Trump to win and name anywhere from 1 – 4 justices to SCOTUS over the next 4 years is really going to help move the country to the left. It won’t and the damage that will be done by the bring back the feudal system complete with the church to control the unwashed masses set will have ample opportunity to further erode the rights of those vulnerable people that progressives claim to be champions for. You want your progressive vote to make a difference then learn to play the long game and start at the grass roots – that’s what the religious right did and we’re now disturbingly close to the precipice of the 18th century
Yes, but the difference is will those that are unhappy be choosing to be unhappy even in the face of positive growth or will they have legitimate concerns?
The pouting over gay rights and attempting to create a more balanced national health care system come from people who tend to want to be unhappy even if things are improving for them vs. people suddenly seeing a violent rise in hate crimes, being targeted because a presidential candidate says he wants to bring back water boarding and having to give birth to their premature babies and bury them so that old white men can feel powerful.
It was like that when Obama was elected. It was like that when Bush was elected. The people who want to bitch will find something to bitch about regardless of how their lives are affected by the outcome. The losing side always has a grieving period where the sky will surely fall because the devil just got into the Whitehouse.
I think the big difference this time around will be that it won’t just be mindless unhappiness and general “dangnabit that good for nothin (insert new president) managed to weasel his way into the Whitehouse!” Which, really, is to be expected. After the shock wears off, because it’s going to be one no matter what, I think there will be real, true fear over our future. Right now we’re able to focus that fear on the race, but once it’s over there’s going to be some serious issues. Whoever wins is not going to have an easy time of it, not that being president is ever easy, but it’s going to be exceptionally brutal.
This. The sky is always falling but this time it may really be falling.
Please dont hand your country over to TP by writing in votes or voting for candidates that you know for a fact dont stand a chance. And if you do do this monumentally stupid thing, dont you dare whine when TP are running the joint when YOU abdicated your civic duty to “make a point” that nobody heard anyway.
yes there’s a huge difference between being unhappy about someone who has policies that you don’t support but who still understands governance and the utter terror that will result from a president who does not know what he’s doing, would sell positions out to the highest bidder, and whose best role to date is as a reality tv star. there’s only one choice that makes sense in this election and let’s hope the majority of us see it that way.
Big changes needed but The Trump presidency would be worse for America:
Republicans Flunk the economy:
(1) Liberal governments tend to invest more money in infrastructure and education, both of which bolster growth. (2) Conservative governments try to maximize growth for the rich by reining in inflation, progressives benefit everyone by reducing unemployment.
(3) Conservatives spend a large amount of their political capital reducing labor force participation among gays, people of color and women. Conservatives oppose policies that would help women balance work and family responsibilities, openly sabotage their economies to discriminate against gays, and pursue policies that overwhelmingly harm people of color.
(4) Conservatives pursue policies that increase inequality, which studies suggest can also slow growth.
(5) Conservatives are less queasy about the influence of money on politics, fostering cronyism that can undermine growth. (6) A weak safety net means that fewer Americans can take entrepreneurial risk, is a key factor in bolstering growth. (7) By creating a winner-take-all economy, conservative governance reduces social trust necessary for growth. (8) By promoting war and violence abroad, and a bloated military at home, conservative governments reduce the money available for clean energy, healthcare, education and tax cuts for the middle class, which create more jobs. (9) By promoting an oversized and unregulated financial system, conservative governments make crisis more likely. Studies also suggest that when the financial sector gets too large it starts to reduce growth.
(10) By reducing upward mobility, conservative governments reduce growth by leaving millions of opportunity-less youth mired in poverty.
This is why Hillary needs to win.
Jeez, what are you expecting, people to listed to facts and common sense?
I’m not surprised at all. The RNC is having financial problems covering the cost of their convention. Major companies have pulled out such as Coke,Pepsi and FEDEX. They’re six million dollar short for this sh*t show. Trump is as bad as it gets and his VP is equally evil. I’m not thrilled about Hillary, but you can bet your ass I will be voting for her and encourage everyone I know to do the same. I don’t understand how anyone could vote for this ahole. Evil is the only word that comes into mind when I see these two repugnant dirtbags.
On a personal note,I’m seriously considering removing people on my Facebook who are putting up pro trump pictures and such. I strongly disagree with the Republican party and now it’s really gotten off the rails. You have to use common sense instead of putting a political party before anything else. The well-being of our country is on the line here. This isn’t Sarah Palin annoying now, it flat out scary.
I imagine that WOMEN will be the ones that really get screwed over. Pence is willing to do away with a lot of little liberties that some married Christian women take for granted like birth control and Planned Parenthoodd.
The toxic combination of xenophobia and right to discriminate in America is not goood.
Omg he is awful! Wants miscarriages and abortions to be cremated or buried. Wants to make women unable to get an abortion/ dnc if the fetus is disabled or has major birth defects. He is a monster. Who forces people to have disabled kids then cuts off any assistance. Get out and vote people!!!
I was talking to a friend last night about what a nightmare of a ticket this is. Her response was…. Well it is not really that big of a deal because the country has already moved forward on gay rights and a woman’s right to choose. I told her if she thinks there is not a large segment of the population that would like roll those rights back…. And will if given the opportunity than she is nuts.
@Tate
Your friend sounds pretty cavalier about rights that were only recently allowed and being fought to repeal every chance they can get.
@Eternal I agree. The more I talked to her the more I realized that she truly believes that the country has moved forward on these issues and that means we won’t move backwards.
I was dying on the inside but stayed calm and asked her to think about the implications of an anti-choice President placing 2 Supreme Court justices. How that had the potential of drastically changing the direction of our country for the next few decades.
Honestly, I hate talking politics but after last night I will talk to more friends. This is just too important. A Trump presidency is beyond terrifying.
@Tate
I know the feeling, I’m very very lucky to have no friends who support Trump because that one would probably make me explode but listening to a friend talk and veer into the old “It’s really the illuminati or some Blah blah blah” for why it doesn’t matter which side of the political scale you vote for made me so glad the conversation was over the phone. I can only imagine my facial expressions would have put a dent in that conversation.
@Tate – show your friend this and then ask how she feels about a woman’s right to choose being inviolate.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/appeal-indiana-woman-convicted-having-abortion
Women might have recently been given the right to have an abortion, but those conservative asshats are trying to restrict access to safe abortion clinics every chance they get. This election has wider implications then just abortion, just imagine our foreign policy. Trump has said several times that he wants to torture people. Land of the free home of the brave, where we torture people. Disgusting. His whole policy with Mexico and the wall (as well as China) pretty much guarantees that the price of goods will skyrocket and there will be some sort of trade war. This is a terrifying time to be an American. All of you better be getting out to vote.
@Tate, I would suggest giving your friend a copy of the Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case in which five men give corporations the right to deny women access to medically necessary health care, along with Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent. In the footnotes, the men rail at Ginsburg for daring to raise those icky women’s health problems like ovarian cysts and endometriosis in their discussion.
To all the people who said that Trump being the Republican nominee couldn’t get any worse: it has. Out of all the people he could have picked, Republicans with sensible policy, fiscal conservativism, and wariness of overreaching federal power, who don’t support abortions but realize there are bigger things…….. he picked this guy. The man who has made it his mission to remove as many reproductive rights as he possibly can, because Jesus, I suppose.
I hope this choice torpedoes his campaign the way Palin and her crazy killed Mcain’s.
@cannibell Thank you for the link. That is unreal.
@lilacflowers I did bring up Hobby Lobby. She was surprised and taken aback to hear about that. This is what scares me about this election. I think there are many uninformed voters who don’t have a clue what is going on. I am not saying it as an insult. Many people are busy working and raising families and they really don’t know how dangerous some of these people are and how much damage they can inflict if we give them the power.
Before anyone decides to throw your vote away on a 3rd party or a write-in please remember the future of SCOTUS is at stake. I’m not a fan of anyone running (or anyone who ran for that matter). I believe in the right of choice & marrying who you love regardless of gender & I would like to go and have a nice time without the fear of being shot. I don’t like how the ACA is currently run but I do like that 26 million who never had health insurance before now do. So to protect the rights that I find important I don’t have the luxury to toss my vote.
Gov. Pence is the governor of Indiana, known for being a hardline conservative. He signed that “Religious Freedom” bill which basically gave homophobes the right to discriminate against LGBTQ people. He’s anti-union, anti-choice, anti-public education, anti-science, anti-immigrant and pro-gun.
@Tate,
Can you please remind your friend about the importance of future SCJs?? RBG will retire soon, and a Rump presidency guarantees at LEAST one conservative justice, maybe even two– the appointments made by the next sitting president will shape the SC for a generation. Voting this election is critically important. I cannot stress that fact enough. 🙁
Pence has afflicted us here for years. If Trump exits at the last minute – President Pence is also an awful possibility. He really is terrible.
I agree, aims. I loathe Hillary but I fervently hope she is our next President.
Hopefully, this goat f@&$ will finally wake people up to the unfunny joke that is Donald Trump.
I don’t understand anyone satying they loathe Hillary. All politician lie. The problem is, the news are constantly saying she is a lier, but never say Donald is a According to the people who keep track of what the politicians have said, they say Trump lie more than anyone else, 65% of the time he lie. Trump know nothing about the job he is running for, he has to pick someone who know something about Washington.
How can anyone put the country in the hands of Trump who has had 4-6 bankruptcies, if he can’t run his businesses how is he going to run the country. He has sued over 3500 people, some just so he does not have to pay what he owes. He has stiffed people who worked for him by short changing their wages or money for contracted work.
Donald had to settle with the nyc attorney general for racial profiling by not renting to blacks by putting a code letter on their applicants, “C” for colored. There are too much to mention about Donald, yet no one calls him out a a lie. I’ll stop now.
Why do you loathe Hillary so much, I am from Ireland , and I hear so many Americans hating her so much, but compared to Donald Trump, I just dont get it. Yes I know about the emails etc, but I think she is still a smart lady and has the right temperment to be a president, with Trump I just dont see anything about him that is presedential or likeable for that matter.
Awesome!
The hate for Hillary is because of the rhetoric the RNC keeps repeating. Lies that have been proven false over and over again, but if you keep repeating them people will start believing them. I’m not saying she’s perfect, but she’s nowhere close to as bad as people think she is.
Google makes it very easy to find out what’s true and what isn’t, according to my FB feed it’s mostly Republicans who have forgotten how to use Google and continue to post the Hillary lies. Especially my brother, I’m seriously considering unfollowing him until this is all over.
There are reasons to not be big fans of Hillary. After what the FBI directer said about her it’s understandable not to trust her. Also, the whole Benghazi thing. She is also a very moderate liberal and she has seen to be behind the times on issues, such as gay marriage. She didn’t support that idea until it was “cool” to. People also don’t like her because sexism is real. She is a tough cookie, a man would be called driven, she’s called a bitch.
Say what you want about H-Rod-C, i’ll happily vote for her before Trump. The idea of a Trump presidency makes me livid.
I am thrilled to see a woman running for President with a very real chance of winning, but I also wish it were someone other than Hillary Clinton. I can’t vote in US elections; if I could I would most definitely vote for her against pretty much any Republican but that doesn’t mean that I am really behind her 100%. It’s more that I dislike her opponent intensely. But then I don’t think I’ve ever been 100% in anyone’s camp, except for perhaps President Obama.
Say what you want about Hillary’s emails — spun, like Benghazi, from the get-go to try to take her down — but they in no way begin to compare to the horror that would be a Trump-Pence administration. I can’t believe even the most fervent Hillary haters would believe that she is any any way, shape or form less qualified or more shady than Trump. And to the faction who believes she killed Vince Foster, etc. PLEASE.
People often loathe Hillary because the major issues she worked on is rarely mentioned in MSM but her scandals are constantly mentioned. This woman has passed many of the same issues Bernie has supported but is rarely even linked to progressive issues. She is one of the big reasons many children now have health care, women having reproductive health care but of course the media wants to focus on scandals that were cleared versus what she has done legislatively. If her husband was running agin with the same scandal he won’t be this “loathed”. Let face it her being a female means she will be a lot more heavily critiqued by the general public because it disguises the sexism underneath all of this mess.
Um, did anybody read the part where I said I was voting for her?
I read it, GNAT. Where have you been??
I am also very familiar with the emotion of loathing categorical liars.
Hi, Kiliki! Just having company for the week. Not much free time. Hope you’re having a nice summer!
GoodNames, Sorry, I did read that, I have known that you have come around to voting for her. I guess I was just answering Nicole’s question, albeit in a very unclear way.
I don’t have ONE trump-ette on FB- Bernie Sander’s posts drove them off like holy water on demons. The downside is all of my rants are preaching to the choir…how do we reach the morons who are dickNatized by all that that is stumpy Trumpy? Orangutang is too kind of a description for the mess that is Making America Hate Again- how can I make sure this man crawls back under the rock of reality tv?
Do you think Condoleeza Rice becoming Trump’s VP would have shaken things up a bit? I have never heard of Pence. I still wouldn’t vote for Trump, but I respect Rice’s intellect and experience.
You can’t reach them. Don’t even bother trying.
Dinah, I dont think someone like Condolezza Rice would want anything to do with him.
Well, if you want to reach the core of Trump fans, find where your local white supremacist, aryan brotherhood, or KKK chapter meets.
I can’t imagine Rice would have said yes to being in the same room as Trump let alone on his ticket. With that said she had 60 embassy deaths when she was SOS (never saw any congressional witch hunt about those) & a private server. She is happily living in academia & I am sure not interested in the Trump Clown car
Condi is tainted by lying to the American public about the Iraq–remember the nyt op Ed she wrote about the mushroom cloud? Not to mention she had been briefed about an Al Queda attack just before 9/11 and as NSA she ignored it. She would have neutralized several of the Repubs talking points about Clinton. She’s a brilliant woman but also brilliantly failed, surprised she gets a pass.
Condi who was too busy attending Spamalot and the US Open and shoe-shopping to take phone calls from dozens of countries offering to help the states hit by Katrina (France had a medical ship in the Caribbean, which they offered to send to New Orleans. The Netherlands offered engineering help with the levees) and then lied and said no countries had offered to help.
Thank you to Snappyfish, Birdix, and lilacflowers for mentioning the facts about Condi Rice. People keep bringing her up as a reasonable alternative, and my jaw drops every time. She’s just as dirty as the rest of the Bush/Cheney/Rove team, and her being a black woman does not absolve her of any of that.
Scott Brown was on the selection committee so yes, half-assed would be the perfect description for this and everything the Cosmo Centerfold ex-Senator does.
Check out Jeffrey Wright’s Twitter comments about the logo.
Also check out Tampons for Trump.
TFT is hilarious. I was on there just yesterday.
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Seriously? That’s hilarious! Make a guy feel welcome, right?
Choosing for party unity absolutely wreaks of McCain/Palin, and look how well that worked out. It really shows an inability to make a good and important decision. And I think those within the party who hate Trump hate him enough that Pence isn’t going to unify anything.
So glad the Samantha Bee logo gif was included. Her show is the best!
Trump has been using that song at rallies for a long time. It’s funny because it’s like he never actually listened to the whole song.
Pence might help Trump unify the party, but he will definitely help to bring in big GOP donators who have been unsure of Trump. Just watch, this is all about the money. Trump has loaned his campaign A TON of money and has to make sure that they get enough to pay himself back.
Why are the Stones letting him use that song? Did he actually get their permission?
He also plays Sympathy for the Devil and Brown Sugar and the Stones have issued statements that he does not have permission to use their songs.
You don’t need permission to play artists songs. If they’re licensed for public usage and you pay for that, you get to use them.
Ah, Pepper, thanks. Most (rational) people would probably care if the artists objected to the songs being used. Sigh.
I was wondering about that too, Esmom.
Technically, even if they’re licensed for public usage the Rolling Stones could choose to sue, because using their music implies that they’re backing a particular candidate (other artists have actually sued on this basis). BUT the problem being that by suing, the Stones could potentially be giving Trump more publicity in the long run.
Technically, even if they’re licensed for public usage the Rolling Stones could choose to sue, because using their music implies that they’re backing a particular candidate (other artists have actually sued on this basis). BUT the problem being that by suing, the Stones could potentially be giving Trump more publicity in the long run.
Actually, you do have to get permission AND pay for the rights. But you get that permission from whomever owns those licensing rights, and that isn’t always the artists. Michael Jackson owned a huge catalog of rights to other artists’ music.
I don’t know what the status of the Stones’ music is.
Reagan played Bruce Springsteen’s BORN IN THE USA, much to The Boss’ chagrin. The song sounds like an anthem, but the lyrics are rightfully scornful and damning of a society who chose to throw away their forgotten “heroes” who didn’t win an unwinnable war. This time around, Mick probably becomes increasingly convinced Trump is Jerry Hall’s next husband whenever he hears SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL.
Imagine being Pence and having to respond to media questions about some of Trump’s more outrageous comments.
He has made some rather outrageous comments himself so he probably would be quite comfortable.
Mansplaining the need to revoke civil rights will be a nice fresh change from telling women to revoke their reproductive rights.
Pence also doesn’t think that smoking causes cancer on top of all his other craziness. He’s used to being asked about odd comments.
It would be hilarious if it was just a movie. The fact that it’s all real is actually kind of terrifying. I’m hoping to be laughing about it mid-November when it’s all over.
I kinda shocked that Ivanka Trump is still getting good reviews after revealing herself to be a pretty little racist!
I can’t even watch anything to do with this nonsense anymore, what’d she do?
She’s rolling out her kids left and right for the happy family photo-ops. What happened to her 16-hour days at the office?
The narrative has changed to SuperMom/SuperDaughter. Her job responsibilities are clearly fluid.
I still think she counted the moment she woke up until she went to bed as the 16 hours. As in — Oh, I had to shower and have my hair styled. At night, I checked e-mail twice. And those six hour-long breaks during the day were completely work-related.
@Jayna – Ivanka got a temp to fill in for her 😉
My husband is a conservative political blogger. According to him, no one else, with the exception of Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich, would even consider running with Trump as most see it as a political career killer.
Pence would lose a reelection bid in Indiana and has no other prospects going forward.
When you have top GOP governors, senators and congressmen publicly coming out saying, “Don’t even put my name in the running for VP – NOT interested”, which happened over and over, then you know you’ve got the worst possible candidate.
The polls are showing both Hillary and Trump with less than 40% support each. I’m Libertarian, so I’m voting Gary Johnson.
Christie and Gingrich would be on the ticket of Satan himself. We know some folks in the Republican establishment as well, and have heard similar sentiments about everyone running as far and fast from from Trump as possible.
I think this is the best opportunity we’re likely to have in a very long time to break the two-party stranglehold in the US. With such abysmal candidates in those parties, voters who are fed up should seriously consider voting for Johnson or Stein. A large enough number of the populace doing so is necessary for meaningful party/electoral process reform… and unhappy R/D voters doing so get the additional benefit of a clearer conscience.
No. We have nowhere near enough interest in third parties to waste national votes on them. Nader 2000, right? Al Gore is as liberal as George W. Bush, right?
I agree with Betsy. How quickly folks forget the debacle with Nader in 2000. Had the voters in Florida alone voted for Gore instead of Nader, we wouldn’t have had a Dubya presidency.
Nader was 16 years ago! As Baby Boomers age and die, more people are coming into voting age who are willing to give serious consideration to candidates besides the traditional Rs and Ds.
For there to be meaningful political change in the US, the Ds and Rs must give up their stranglehold on the electoral process. It seems to me the way to start that avalanche is to wake up the entrenched powers… and a groundswell of third-party votes will be an unmistakable wakeup call.
For myself, disliking both nominees as I do, I couldn’t face myself in the mirror every morning if I were to vote for one of them.
There will be no groundswell of third party voters. It doesn’t matter that the Nader debacle was 16 years ago, his run and the people who thought the two parties were too similar had a chokehold on politics, are what brought our country to near total financial ruin and gifted us the ongoing delight that is the Middle East tinderbox. They gave us eight years of extreme “conservatism,” then eight more years of horrific paralyzation. No, the third parties – at least the Greens – will get the same piddling percentages as ever.
You want political change, for real? Get liberals to the polls in midterm years and in local elections. We keep losing the ground we get in Presidential elections when those people stay home for most election days.
– a geriatric Millennial
@poisonous: are things no longer relevant because they happen 16 years ago? Last I checked, this stuff is still important. And considering that Millenials have had appallingly low voter turnout, they’re not exactly spurring on any groundswell of change. As Betsy noted above, what will really be the impetus for change is for folks to actually pay attention to and vote in midterm elections. You know, actually be present in the process.
Third parties really, really, really need to build strong grassroots systems and start winning municipal and state elections and congressional elections before they have any chance of winning a presidential election. I like Jill Stein. I’ve actually voted for her a few times as her name appears on my state ballot practically every election cycle for some office or other . She has run for governor, senator, and treasurer, I think. But she’s not going to get anywhere unless there is a strong organization to get out the vote. There just isn’t.
@Bridget: My point in stating that Nader was 16 years ago was that much has changed in that time, including the composition of the voting public. Asserting that because something happened a certain way in the past, it will play out the same way today is not exactly logical… especially with all the changes that have occurred since Nader.
I’m usually all for voting outside the TweedleDems and TweedleRepubs, and I agree we desperately need to break the back of the two-party system. But the reality is that we are still stuck with a winner-take-all system. So in this election, I would vote for Donald Duck if he were the Democratic nominee. We cannot risk Trump or Pence in the White House. If they win, I sincerely hope somebody has the foresight to at least sabotage any access to the nuclear weapons and missiles… We just barely made it through a Reagan Presidency, I’m not so sure we will survive Trump. The US President has access to way too much power, and the time for decisions can be way too short. Ignorant Presidents can kill on a massive scale in the blink of an eye. Decisions about the Supreme Court and federal judge appointments will also haunt us for years to come. If we survive.
We need to find a way out of winner-take-all two-party hell, but elections don’t seem to working as the way to do it. Certainly not this election. If someone really would not vote at all otherwise, a third party candidate is better than staying home. But really, we need to completely repudiate Trump, which means Hillary has to also outrun the Republican hackers who have made recent elections more difficult. So every vote counts now more than ever.
After the last GOP convention/presidential election, an autopsy was done by the GOP party. The plan was to rethink their platform to broaden their base. I don’t think internal change happened. What happened is that someone-Trump- who was/is not a Republican has come and taken over the party. The same happened for the Dems per Bernie Sanders. He was successful in having much of his (Socialist/Independent/far left) platform incorporated into the Dem platform. I see parallels here.
To characterize Sanders’ platform as far-left is both hilarious and sad. So is painting him as an outlier/infiltrator of the Dem party. He’s a career politician who has been pretty steady about a program that used to be core Democrat, unfortunately now defunct.
The issue is that the folks in power on the Republican side simply don’t want to have to change, and as they control a lot of the big money no one is forcing them to change. It’s no shock that we’re stuck with such a garbage fire on the Republican side when Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh have considered themselves the “kingmakers” for years now. No one wants to deal with their crazy.
The issue with the Dems side is that Clinton has made it known for so long that she’s giving the presidency one more shot, and the Clintons have so many connections and power within that establishment that no one wants to deal with a repeat of ’04 (when the Clinton faction kind of torpedoed Kerry because they knew Hilary wanted to run in ’08). But in general we’re always going to be limited by how many individuals want to go through the grueling process of running for president. It’s intense and invites a crazy amount of public scrutiny.
I’ve read Bernie’s ‘political revolution’ platform. His platform (free healthcare, free college tuition etc) have never been mainstream Dem positions.* The most recent example of a Dem nominee with a far left platform was McGovern in 1972 and resulted in a very difficult battle during the convention. FYI, Bernie himself became a Dem in 2015.
*Bernie may like to compare himself with FDR’s New Deal, but historians would disagree and align him rather with historical Socialist movements.
I’m not a historian, my husband is, and he definitely aligns Sanders’ ideas with both the New Deal and the Great Society. Not measure per measure, but in spirit and intent. Now, feel free to call FDR and LBJ socialists, but it’s laughable to call Sanders far left. The Khmer Rouge were far left.
@Lambda – Khmer Rouge far left? No. They were a dictatorship or a junta.
Betsy, you’re confusing the manner in which a political regime is assuming and exercising power with its respective political program and orientation. Yes, the Khmer Rouge were both dictatorial and far left. Alternately, most kibbutzim at the beginning were both democratic and far left.
Yes Yes Yes. I agree with you and your husband completely. No one’s dream VP list includes Chris “Bridgegate” Christie and Newt “Moon Bases” Gingrich. All of the qualified people who probably could have help Trump have come out publicly saying they wouldn’t even consider it. It’s widely believed that no one who thought they had a political future even considered a VP offer.
If I may, please reconsider your vote. Trump can not win this election or my faith in this country will be destroyed.
If you vote for a third party, you’re giving your vote to Trump.
Yup.
And it boggles the mind people who say that don’t get it.
Absolutely. We’ve been down this road before.
YES. A price we cannot afford to pay.
Agreed 100 percent. I understand that in some elections, one wants to vote for their ideological hopes and dreams…..but in this ridiculous mess, Trump is far too close to the presidency for us to vote third party.
Eh, I actually think a vote for Gary Johnson by a libertarian conservative is closer to a vote for Hilary. Most people with that kind of viewpoint would have voted for a sane Republican, so it’s the GOP that lost that vote. A vote for Jill Stein, on the other hand, is a vote for Trump.
Electoral college. I voted absentee Kansan in DC for years. Since it is all about the electoral college, my voting third party did matter since Kansas bleeds red. I live in Missouri now so my vote actually matters. If you are in a close state, please don’t waste a vote on a third party’s hands. No Human Cheeto.
I don’t know about Christie but I found it interesting that Newt said he was asked to turn over his income taxes for the last 10 years.
And yet we still haven’t even seen Donald’s…..
@ Sherry
I truly despise both Hilary and Trump because they are both amoral people. Trump running is only making it easier for Hilary to win and no real Republican would risk their actual career for a farce. The implications are astounding if Hilary becomes President, but I get why people like her. I used to be a superfan myself at one time. After Sanders lost the nom, I heard about the Green Party candidate and became intrigued. I don’t really understand why more Sanders supporters are not turning in that direction, it is more closely aligned to their goals. So like you I may be voting third party. I think it’s shameful that ppl bash that route when there are several reasons for making that choice. You can’t keep playing into the system and think it’s going to change.
Sanders know if he wants to see some of his programs come to fruition he has to support Hillary. If his supporters are true supporters they should support her also, they are not going to get anything from trump or the Green party. People say a lot of thing about Hillary but they cannot say she is not the most qualified to run this country. We cannot believe anything trump has to say. He is only running to line his pockets. He has started already by paying himself back for using his facilities and double charging for gas, and travel expenses. Just don’t fall for the con man.
B n A I don’t believe anything out of Trump or Hilary’s mouth. To me they are both equal when it comes to character. When it comes to competency to do a job, yes, she has put in the political work. Sanders was never going to actually win the nomination. His run did a good job of highlighting the issues he cares deeply about and reenergizing young voters to care about the system. Personally, I believe for him that was the end goal, that was his win. Also, it’s fairly and completely obvious that the Green party & Libertarian party will never have the financial support or backing necessary to rival the 2 big parties. So why assume that I’m falling for “con man” because I said I don’t care for Hilary. To me they are different sides of the same coin. He’s a con man and she’s a con woman.
Because realistically, voting 3rd party could push the election for Trump. Think about what happened in 2000 – had the folks who voted for Nader in FL voted for Gore, there likely wouldn’t have even been a recount in the first place. He would have won outright. Do you really want to risk that your 3rd party vote is a vote for Trump?
Bridget,
There is myth that Nader caused major damaged to Gore. What hurt Gore was the tampering of ballots and the electoral college. The same way that Hilary was able to win the nomination by ballot tampering. At most Sanders supporters were 4% of the party. Despite what the media is painting, the vast majority will vote for Hilary, a smaller portion will vote for Jill Stein, so the 3rd party votes will not cause a lot of damage to Hilary’s campaign.
” I’m Libertarian, so I’m voting Gary Johnson.”
Then you have no place to complain when Trump is taking away the rights to control your own body.
This election is too important to waste votes on third party candidates.
I agree with Trixie. I am now living in Canada where there are 3-4 parties that have a footing in parliament…but in the US—no third party candidate gets more than 3% of the votes and with this tight of a race, please do not waste your vote to make a statement! I do not want Trump/Pence taking away my right’s as a woman and preventing me from coming back to the US if my parent’s fall ill(because of their policies).
Yes, losing Pence as governor in Indiana would be wonderful. But I worry about The Donald winning and ending up with President Pence once The Donald gets bored. Or not. Screwed either way.
Mike Pence isn’t all that bright but has always had big money behind him. Geez, first Dan Quayle and now Mike Pence. Please believe me, we do have intelligent people in Indiana despite these two idiots being inflicted on the nation.
“Very, very”…”bad bad”…”horrible horrible”
Just love how articulate Trump is…love his pattern of repeating juvenile words twice as though that makes them more impactful.
He said it himself…. I have all the best words. 😩
“I Know Words, I Have The Best Words. I’m very highly educated.”
– Donald Trump, potential President of the United States
My sister was saying the first thing that struck her listening to his speech was how inarticulate he was.
He’s very juvenile in his choice of words. Like calling people losers when he doesn’t like something they’ve said. He sounds like a third-grader.
He tailors his speeches to his audience. His supporters aren’t exactly the brightest crayons in the box.
Let’s not forget that he also called the Hispanic judge a “hater”…I thought only teenagers used that word.
@gwen
Teenagers and Kardashians.
There is method to his madness. It’s called dumbing down to the audience, enflaming the emotions with words like “bad”, with mind-numbing repetition. It’s all from the H*tler playbook. Keep it simple (and hypnotic), stupid.
My favorite was when he introduced Sarah Palin as a “high quality person.” WTF?
@Amunet, I’m sorry, I really was just talking in general about trump being a con man. Please don’t take it personal. I’m just so annoyed reading how much hell is given to Hillary but Trump is looked At as not as evil. His behavior is glossed over because he is male and a rich man. He is not turning over his taxes but is given a pass, who know if he’s as rich as he’s claiming to be, who know if he’s paying taxes. I bet my last dollar I’m paying more taxes than he has paid for the last ten years. iMovie, he’s a snake oil sales man who was born on third base and believes he hit a triple.
@B n A fn no harm no foul. Yeah, I don’t understand the ppl who defend Trump but have negative stuff to say about Hilary. It’s bizarre. Especially when conservator women have negative stuff to say about Hilary and it’s all RNC talking points, which tells me they did no research and is just following what others say and I can’t respect that. Trump is just a loser in every aspect. And I’m astonished the media is not doing more to cover his lecherous past with sexual assault allegations from a child sex slave.
Yep, this is what half of our country has devolved into, but never let anyone tell you the Republican Party pushes racist, sexist, backwards homophobic ideals.
NEVER.
It’s just a really peculiar coincidence that the man proudly displaying all those ideals is getting the most party support. No connection at all.
Pay no attention to the man behind the toupee.
100% agree. The Republican Party is racist. Full stop. Sure, there are racist democrats, but the GOP, is like Threat Level Red racist. I’m so tired of pretending that’s not the case. It is. If you’re voting Republican, this day in age, you’re either a full blown racist, or you don’t understand racism and don’t realize that you’re actually more racist than you realize. The GOP’s policies and rhetoric are a major part of the cement that keeps systemic racism alive and well.
I think that’s a blanket statement and shows how far both sides have gone. McCain was a cool Republican. Granted he is the only one in recent memory that I like. The Republican party isn’t my spirit animal, not even in its inception, but if, in an alternate universe, McCain ever did become president I would be cool with it. The Republican party is spectrum like any other with a role to play. Right now they are fulfilling their actor credit.
And McCain was defeated in the 2000 primary because Bush’s people did a phone poll in North Carolina about whether “hypothetically” someone would vote for a man for president that had a black, illegitimate child. An obvious strike at McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi daughter,but which appealed to a certain segment of voters.
Or what about the blatant re-drawing of voting districts to separate out traditionally black neighborhoods and voting populations? The blatant disenfranchisement of many black voters?
There is a serious, serious race problem in the Republican party right now. That isn’t to say that every Republican is racist, but as a party there is a HUGE problem.
Bridget,
Oh I def agree that the party has some deep seated issues that in my opinion are too inherent for them to shake. The moderate Republicans like to pull on the racists in their party and get them inflamed whenever they want turn-out. Similar to pulling out a pit bull you keep on a leash. The top leaders know this is wrong but historically this is how they role. That’s why I can’t respect the Republican party from any perspective. McCain was another one of those candidates destined to lose. Like he was never going to be President.
Has Trump made a speech where he doesn’t brag on himself at least twice?
No.
Never.
Only twice?
What would a Trump speech include if he didn’t brag about himself? Details on policy positions? Lol NEVER!
Oh he would just fill his speech with more Nazi language like he is doing now.
My mind wanders over to the lyrics of THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE. One of the sounds is Donald Trump not bragging on himself.
And despite this, I am still terrified that this moron is going to get elected.
Despite all the evidence we’ve been shown at out how intent he is on gutting any progressive cause, any kind of civil or reproductive rights (apparently doubling down on that as he’s picked a man for VP who is definitely part of the faction that sees women as little else than baby making punching bags), people STILL think it is a risk worth taking.
I feel like I will have some hard decisions coming after the election if this fascist takes office because I’m probably going to have to part ways with people who still seem to think that voting third party in this election is somehow going to have a positive effect.
I respect the Libertarians, but this election is too important to throw away your votes on a party that won’t win. I guess it took Donald Trump to make me an avid Hillary Clinton supporter
“… I’m probably going to have to part ways with people who still seem to think that voting third party in this election is somehow going to have a positive effect.”
Do you think voting with a clothespin on one’s nose for either Clinton or Drumpf will have a positive effect? How will that bring about electoral change, so that the will of the people is better considered (at the very least)?
I agree Poisonous Lookalike. The truth is that Americans like rhetoric and idealism but sometimes do not like to work for it. You can’t say that in this country we respect choice and people have the right to independently be themselves and operate on their own accord, but the second someone breaks from group think they are criticized. That’s disheartening. We have the power to bring about electoral change but instead reinforce behavior that is problematic to us as a whole body. I hate the whole “throw away a vote” argument because it runs parallel to “if you don’t vote you can’t complain”. Therefore, what people are saying is “if you vote you must vote the way I want or it’s pointless. And I have a right to no longer respect you for that choice.”
How is throwing your vote away on a third party candidate that has zero chance of winning going to help ANYONE if Trump gets elected? He will then be able to appoint one Supreme Court position and possibly as many as three, stacking the deck in horrifying ways for probably the next 20 03 30 years. How it will it help the environment when he and his cronies want to gut regulations? When women don’t have access to reproductive rights? I could go on and NONE of it is hyperbole.
It astonishes me that we are still having this conversation after seeing this whole thing play out with Ralph Nader and what the after effects of that little folly was. This time, the stakes are much more serious. If people want third party candidates to have impact, they need to start making more effort at getting them in at local grass roots level first, raising their profiles so that a presidential bid is taken seriously. Unfortunately, may supporters can’t be bothered to get off their ass to vote in the local and mid term elections that might boost the impact of those choices and instead only appear when it is time to vote for president and sometime not even THEN.
@amunet ma’at: I agree completely. It’s a repeating pattern in Congressional politics that satisfaction with their work is very low, yet the re-election rate is astoundingly high. That’s partly due to the herd mentality you speak of.
@grabbyhands: I do not believe that every third-party candidate has a zero chance of being elected. Many people are disgusted and sick over the two party choices they have and are actively looking for alternatives. Bernie’s ongoing popularity is a testament to that. But if they keep hearing anti-third-party rhetoric, many of them will feel pressured to stay within the two-party system that has failed at representing the majority of this country. Bernie’s popularity also would seem to put the lie to the idea that bottom-up reform is somehow better or more likely to succeed than top-down change.
Johnson and his VP candidate were both Republican Party governors before moving to the Libertarian Party. Surely their platform is more logical and acceptable to a decent proportion of Rs than Drumpf’s is.
I understand that it’s horrifying to you and many other to consider Drumpf’s Supreme Court nominees, as well as many other actions he would take as president. Do you understand that for some, considering the same of HRC is equally horrifying?
That said, Congress has shown some backbone of late and could be quite obstructionist with either of them until something reasonable comes before them.
Last, I think it’s a symptom of how broken our system is that we’ve had hanging-chad scandals and the two divisive presumptive presidential nominees this election cycle. There are many other ways to structure elections that are more fair and more representative. This link is to a YouTube playlist on the topic of electoral systems by CGP Grey, who seems to be a quite intelligent person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&list=PLNCHVwtpeBY4mybPkHEnRxSOb7FQ2vF9c
It’s well worth watching and thinking about.
@Poisonous Lookalike Thank you for actually giving me something to think about. I mean honestly, I believe that we have two choices of fundamental and complete change. We can either protest the election process and demand more changes that is representative to what the people want or perhaps we should flood as many dissatisfied voters to third party as possible. I keep hearing ppl say they know the candidate is messed up, they know the system is messed up but they sucked it up and voted for the lesser o two evils. I mean that morally and logically does not sound like it is of our best interests. Instead, it is perpetuating a problem.
Really, it does depend on where you live because of the electoral college. Some states are going to go solidly republican while others will go solidly democrat and they simply are not in play so someone who lives in one of those states could vote third party without impacting the state’s electoral college vote.
True dat. Pretty good insight.
@amunuet ma’at: do you even know which states are likely to go Republican in the election?
Ordinarily I would say, yes, but the Trump dumpster fire is putting a lot of solid “red” states into play for Hillary.
@Bridget
I use this as a guide: https://www.experfy.com/blog/predicting-the-2016-presidential-election-and-2025-unemployment-rate-d45dac23-8b41-4004-903f-e0fc73c97d44
Part of what is helping Trump isn’t himself but the tragedies that have been occurring. Those events are being exploited and I believe it is changing the narrative of this election. A month ago, I would say Trump’s sole purpose was to make Hilary look good. Now that Trump appears to bring so much chaos, it appears that the narrative will shift to his favor. I don’t think Trump expected it nor did those in the party so now they are scrambling. The summer conventions always feel too soon to call.
This is a good point, lilacflowers. For folks who live in swing states…my recommendation is the tough medicine to swallow type. For those who, like me, live in states that are entirely predictable and, unlike me, have trouble voting for Clinton…all I’d say is that I’d rather they go to the polls and vote for a third party candidate than stay home. The downticket races are really important this year, and honestly, in most years the House and Senate and state races have a lot more impact on people’s lives. It doesn’t really do much good to keep Trump out of the White House if the rest of the government that Clinton has to work with is full of Trump supporters.
My family lives in West Virginia and I can tell you wholeheartedly Trump is going to take that state. Bordering, similar states such as Pennsylvania (not counting, thank goodness, Philly’s influence), Kentucky, Ohio, etc are also vulnerable. The reason is Hillary has come out anti-coal mining, which is HUGE in Appalachia. In addition, Trump has (I begrudgingly admit) done a good job talking to the mostly blue collar, working populations of those states about the loss of labor jobs, coal mining closures, etc., and how he’s going to “punish” the companies that pull manufacturing out of the US.
I dunno if we can be sure which states will be solidly Republican and which solidly Democrat any more. In Obama’s first election, he managed to win Indiana. Never would have guessed that would happen ever. People honestly are still deciding as they walk into the polling place a lot of times. So polls can be very wrong.
That also explains how know-nothings like Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump can get into office. It’s all image that sways a lot of people. Reagan was a charming liar who was surprised to discover that “they’re all different countries down there” in Central America, after years raining destruction down on them, and who believed ballistic missiles could be recalled no matter how often he was reminded that they can’t. Such voters aren’t worried about an uninformed person having the authority to start WWIII (without any Congressional input, unConstitutional though that is) or to dismantle decent government programs (which Reagan said he would do and got pretty far in the attempt: ruined university work-study, non-military budget cuts gave rise to American kids with kwashiorkor, put pre-millennialists in key positions who believed the Rapture was nigh so why not make a profit while they could and who also promoted conflict in the Middle East to hasten the Second Coming ). They don’t worry about such people causing endless trouble for a couple of generations with poor choices of judges or driving us deep into debt with pointless wars and preparation for wars (Reagan doubled the military budget to 300 billion, it’s even worse now). Trump is even more of a loose cannon but many voters aren’t afraid of him in the Presidency. Scares the hell out of me, though.
Anyone else getting a Judge Smails (Caddyshack/ Ted Knight) vibe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQMr9DvXXF8
“I’ve sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. I didn’t like to do it, but I owed it to them.” – Judge Smails
I find it comical he just tweeted the news initially that Pence was the VP pick. A tweet? Seriously? And on a Friday? That’s when celebs release news they want to have less impact and, hopefully, buried by the time Monday rolls around. The same with politicians. Big announcements would not come on a Friday. And the speech was hysterical the way it was about him.
I definitely believe he has buyer’s remorse.
I really think he wanted Chris Christie.
I think he plans to give Chris Christie the attorney general position. I think he wanted Newt.
@Nicole – Trump’s son in law was seriously against Christie. It was Trump’s campaign manager who pushed Mike Pence.
Chris Christie got Ivankas father-in-law jailed back when he was New Jersey AG. The man was shady (as are most people in construction at that level *coutgh* TRUMP) but Christie also exploited that prosecution as a career stepping stone and Ivankas hubby has never forgiven it. Thats why Christie was doing so much grovelling and *ss kissing in the run up to this announcement, it clearly didnt work. He wont get AG either even if Trump wins the election. The sons vengeance is complete.
New Jerseyan here…I initially thought he would appoint Christie to the AG position too, but i don’t think he can pass the congressional vetting due to Bridgegate. Best Christie can expect now is to be appointed WH Chief of Staff.
That said, Fatboy has been an absentee governor and needs to step down. Even when he was here, he was a sh*t
Governor.
Chris Christie would have jumped at the chance to be VP. In a heartbeat.
Christie was so desperate for it and willing to do or say anything – probably why Trump liked him.
New Jerseyean here too – Christie has been out of the state pretty much since he got the campaigning bug, and now keeps ditching to run after Trump. He is utterly useless and should be run out of town.
Do Pence and Obama go to the same suntanning salon? Pence just needs a little more orange in his perfect tan. LOL
Haha Jayna…don’t think Obama needs a suntanning salon. Believe you obviously meant Trump, but it was my laugh for the day!
Oops. LOL Thanks, JudyK. Yes. I mean, “Pence and Trump.”
Trump’s wavering, vacillating and waffling are also troublesome. He doesn’t know how to make a decision. It’s because he doesn’t know, period. Is this the decision maker you want as the president of the U.S.? A president has tremendous power and can actually destroy the world on impulse or foot-dragging. The Republicans need to do more than just boycott Trump. They must be VERY vocal that he is a dangerous candidate and a threat to democracy. I still believe both Bush presidents need to get involved. This is no time for following tradition and remaining silent on their party’s candidate (even if they will not appear at the RNC). It’s past the time for subtlety and these Trumpers don’t speak the language of subtlety anyway (nor do they understand it). And voting for a third party is no good either. Suck it up and tell the American people to vote for Clinton. If the shoe were on the other foot, I would gladly vote against my party if it were necessary. It is.
Never happening.
Hilary needs someone that can bring some much needed juice to her campaign, and can additionally help her win their home state. I heard Corey Booker thrown around as a possibility, and I think that would be amazing.
Booker would be an energetic choice and I do think she needs energy.
I want Julian Castro but that’s just because I want Julian Castro.
I think it’ll be interesting to see how this works out, because the Clintons can be notoriously difficult to work with. I really hope that with Hilary finally in the driver’s seat that they can finally soften up their style and make space for a genuinely good and exciting VP candidate.
Wow, I only just noticed where the above comment posted. Sorry, that was supposed to be in response to the question about Sanders becoming Hilary’s VP pick!
yes, i think Cory Booker would be a fantastic choice. he’s young, charismatic, and smart. he would appeal to many young voters and bring needed vitality and energy to the clinton campaign.
I hope she picks someone really good, and for the right reason – that she’d trust them to do the job if needed.
I like Booker a lot, I think he has great potential.
This is a bit off topic, but since we’re talking VP choices, I’m just curious if anyone thinks it’s possible Hillary might choose Bernie to be her running-mate? I’m not American, but I’m wondering if it might be a smart choice to shore up her own support? Of course, it would be just as political and “party-unifying” as Trump’s reasons for his choice, but it’s a possibility I’ve wondered about for a while. Would it help her or hinder her?
No, she won’t.
I don’t necessarilly think it would shore up her base. In the end it really became Bernie vs. Clinton and the seeds of disharmony were sown with a lot more lasting impact than when it was Obama vs. Hilary.
A segment of Bernie’s voting base has already declared him a traitor for endorsing her and declared they’re voting Johnson (libertarian candidate with views totally opposite much of Bernie’s campaign ideals) so I don’t really think it will do much to unite the base.
I think as time goes on I just see more and more people somewhat detached from the reality of consequences in voting. People who think Trump couldn’t do that much damage because the govt. will stop him (the same party rolling over for him just for the sake of winning?) or that he’ll somehow be able to fulfill the campaign promises he doesn’t even take the time to explain. I think in short the base will unify when it comes to crunch time or they’ll unify once hindsight becomes horrifying 20/20, we all had such a good time under Bush after all.
It won’t be Bernie for a number of reasons that actually have little to do with his positions. First, there is the age issue, the media is constantly pointing out Hillary’s age (Trump and Bernie are both older but men are given a pass); so she possibly could be looking for someone younger for that “one heartbeat away” bit and to balance out the age. Secondly, geographically and electoral college-wise, Vermont is likely to be leaning to Clinton any way. Usually, a candidate tries to pick a running mate from a swing state or one that geographically counter balances. I suspect she’s looking at men from the south.
Highly doubt it – most people who voted for Sanders will vote for Clinton anyway, and she’s met with Sanders to negotiate the party platform before he conceded. He seems like he prefers being in the Senate, anyway.
Clinton’s rumored VP candidates include Elizabeth Warren, John Hickenlooper, Tim Kaine, and Julian Castro.
Yep. I think Warren would be a sane choice and would add some fun and spunk to the campaign trail.
I love love love Elizabeth Warren. I would die if she was the VP pick, and that would bring some serious integrity to that ticket (though big banks hate her with a fiery passion and would throw all of the money ever at Trump so that Warren didn’t become VP). Booker is also supposedly in the mix too.
Bridget,
I didn’t think about how much the banks hate her. Good point. I’m interested to see who Hilary picks. It is downright alarming how people are spinning chaos as a way to hem up votes. I’ll check out info on Booker, I’m not too familiar with that name.
Oh, please let me keep my Senior Senator Elizabeth Warren as my senior senator. I cannot take another special senate election. We had two in four years plus two other regular Senate races. And then a whole slew of special elections to fill the slots vacated by the special Senate elections. Let me keep Elizabeth. PLEASE!!!
Booker is in NJ. Word was Chris Christie was THRILLED when Booker ran for a vacated Senate seat because Christie was worried Booker was going for the governorship and it would have been a fight. Booker is younger, amiable, charismatic and a pretty decent dude.
If Hilary were smart she’d choose someone younger and more charismatic, but neither Clinton is known for their ability to play well with others so who knows what shakes out.
I actually wanted Bernie to stay in the Senate, we need him there. As Prez, he’d just be blocked from doing anything anyway.
Warren could probably do more good for the campaign as someone not on the ticket. She’s refreshingly direct and sane. Send her on talk shows as her schedule permits and keep her tweeting – she annoys the heck out of The Donald.
Thanks, everyone, for the perspectives. I’ve learned so much about the finer nuances of American politics here on CB in the last few months. Choosing a candidate from a swing state is something that had never crossed my mind, but the age thing makes sense to me.
A lot goes into a VP pick. A good pick is supposed to deliver their home state (bonus points if they’re a swing state) and is supposed to bring a little balance to the ticket. That’s why Obama went with Joe Biden, who was super established in Washington. Why Romney, a pretty moderate Republican, went with Paul Ryan. It’s about who can help either with image, or with fundraising, or help appeal to voters they’re otherwise worried about. And of course, the other issue with tapping your Primary rival is simply the fact that they have an air of defeat around them at that point, as terrible as that is to say.
Thanks, Bridget. So what was Palin expected to deliver?
Any thoughts on whether Bernie might be offered an upper-level position like how Hillary got SOS?
Petrichor,
You know I have to agree with you. Even if I disagree with the ideas being expressed, I am growing and learning in that process and that’s a cool thing to experience. At least the majority of people are willing to bring their A game in discussion.
Petrichor: Palin wasn’t about geographic diversity, as Alaska is a dependable Republican state. That choice was partly age, partly gender, and partly stupidity. McCain was a 71-year-old white guy who’d always branded himself as a maverick…but who was running against a 46-year-old biracial man with massive youth appeal. He was hoping to balance some of that out and brush up his reputation as an outsider by choosing a young, energetic vice-president with a young family (Obama kind of did the mirror of that by choosing Biden, an older man with decades of political experience). He also made the choice very shortly after Obama won an ugly primary battle against Clinton. People have sort of brushed this over, but things were just about as bitter as they are now between Sanders and Clinton supporters. McCain was hoping that by choosing a woman as vice-president, he might attract some Clinton supporters who felt she’d been treated in a sexist way. The third part of it is just that McCain went with his gut on Palin and made the decision in a short period of time based on his personal liking for her. She was a fairly unknown figure and being in Alaska hadn’t met that many people personally, so it took awhile for them to realize how horrid she was.
As for cabinet positions, Sanders might very well have been offered one, but I can’t imagine he’d want to take it. Clinton was in a very different place eight years ago, as she was only 60 and could look forward to another run. Sanders is basically out of the presidential game now, I think. Given that, I don’t see why he’d want to give up his Senate seniority to take on a Cabinet job. It’s fairly clear that he’s demanded concessions in the party platform. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he asked for various surrogates or at least people who hold the same ideals as he does to be placed in certain positions. He’ll probably get some of that, not just because he asked but because voters have demonstrated that the left-populist wing of the party has a good number of supporters.
Palin was supposed to deliver women. McCain actually wanted to name Joe Lieberman as his running mate, and Lieberman, who was independent at the time, was willing, but party leaders said absolutely not, he had to choose a Republican. So McCain left it up to his advisors without his own input and they, listening to Rush Limbaugh chose Palin to solidify the extremist base AND because they believed that moderate and liberal women would be so outraged that Hillary was pushed aside for Obama that they would vote for anyone with a vagina.
Amunet: Yup, the high quality of comments is why I’ve been a CB fan for the past 5 years. I don’t always comment myself, but I learn so much from those who do.
Lunchcoma: Thanks for the great analysis. See above response to Amunet. I appreciate the time it takes to write such a detailed and insightful comment. (And that goes for everyone who has shared their perspective on this thread.)
I’m so tired of this election. There is so much hate from both sides. People hating friends, family members, etc., because of this race. Facebook, news sites, and everything else is filled with anger. I can’t find any real news about the election because anything I read so filled with crap. It’s so tiring. There’s so much fighting between Democrats and Republicans. I’ve seen enough hate in this world in these first 7 months to last a life time.
To be honest the hate was started with Trump when he announced he was running for president. The first thing he said was Mexicans are crossing the border. He said Mexico was not sending their best, they were sending rapists, murders and guns. Then he said he was going to build a wall and Mexico was going to pay for it, not. Then when the people at his rallies protesting he encouraged his people to assault the protesters and he would pay their legal fees. He put out a false survey saying blacks were the ones committing the most crimes in this country, that was a lie and he knew it. He said he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th ave in Manhattan and his followers would still vote for him, ect. I have never heard Hillery saying anything even close to this. So to be honest, trump is the one who is promoting the hate. With him using such devices to words, the people are going to protest.
The hate was always there, this race has only just given it a megaphone.
Republicans will tell you proudly that their party ideals are not supporting gay marriage, not supporting women’s rights to her autonomy, not supporting immigration reform and giving major support to big businesses with a focus on ‘trickle down’ economics. As our country has changed there isn’t room for compromise in those areas from much of the American public.
The hate is because we are at a point where we have to look at the value system of ourselves and our fellow neighbors and determine whether those values are meant to push the country we live in forward in a positive way or simply regurgitate some fantasies we know do not work and that we can not actually fufill.
There’ve been articles written about how many politicians voted against national healthcare not because their party had a cohesive alternative plan but because their constituents would have hated to see them compromise with a democrat and it could have ruined their chances at reelection .
It is the same reason Chris Christie went from being grateful and publicly thankful for Obama’s help during the horrific after effects of the storm to publicly distancing himself and cervently brown-nosing Trump. As a country a lot of us are frustrated, some more rightfully so than others, and we are fighting to determine whether we can finally meaningfully move forward or keep stagnating a 1950’s all white Pleasantville fantasy.
The Eternal-Side_eye ^This is beautifully written. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I purposely didn’t bring up specific parties because I think over time, as the two groups have become more polarized, the hate has grown. And neither party is better than the other. There are just so many killings and ruined relationships on all sides of the spectrum. I see so many generalizations, strawmans, and stereotypes of both democrats and republicans. Like, I saw someone up the thread call every single republican a racist. That’s an issue. That is hate. It’s so saddening to me to see people attack other people simply for liking a political party.
“it could have ruined their chances at reelection.” And that is it, right there in a nutshell. They aren’t dong their jobs and trying to do what is best for the country, their only concern is keeping that job as long as they can. Term limits are seriously needed.
@Llmas
“And neither party is better than the other”
I’m sorry I think for women, poc, and the lgbt community that just isn’t true at all. One party actively supported continuing slavery, how is that “not better than the other”? One party has compared homosexuals to pedophiles and those that rape animals.
Sincerely without any snark please tell me which Democratic views and policies are comparable to suggesting Muslims should be given tests to prove they don’t support Shariah Law or shouldn’t be allowed into the country at all?
If Trump loses in November bet you anything he will end up blaming not trusting his gut on the VP nominee. It’s being heavily reported Pence wasn’t his choice but the choice of his children.
Pence was the choice of his campaign manager Paul Manafort.
If Hillary wins Trump will take full credit for it.
I now know how a deer caught in the headlights feels 😞😨
Honestly, I don’t think we have to realistically worry about a Trump presidency – it’ll never happen. Republicans, I read, make up about 14% of the electorate. Trump has the uneducated white racist misogynist vote all wrapped up, but he still has to convince all the people he’s insulted – women, blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Jews, etc. – to vote for him. They won’t. It will be Hillary in a landslide, especially if she does the smart thing and picks Warren as her VP. Oh dear god, please Hillary, use your head on this one.
Usually, I don’t like to look at the projection polls because it can be so off; however, I also don’t ant to sleep on the very real truth that the top of the top likes this type of conflict. This type of conflict keeps ppl dissatisfied and disenfranchised. This type of conflict actually helps the status quo. Even though the fervent racists in the Republican party may appear low, I think the numbers are a lot higher than projected. I also think that with the recent events that the media will continue to spin the negativity, giving casual racists or the racially suspect the push it needs to go full on hate mode. I also think there is too much dissension in the Democratic party, and the press is now trying to prettify it so not to scare ppl but Dems have an ugly underbelly as well. If this summer is anything to go off of, I think it’s going to be a tight and contentious race until the end.
I wish it were that cut and dried.
I know a guy who is very nice, smart, and a really decent, kind, and generous guy. He’s also an immigrant, speaks with a strong accent, and looks Middle Eastern (he’s Indian). He’s voting for Trump.
Honestly it blows my mind. I don’t understand it, how he can look at everything that Trump has said and done and promised to do, and be ok with it. If I were him, I’d be terrified at the idea, for himself and his children.
I’m convinced–im voting for Trump.
So I just read that Antonio Sabato, Jr and Scott Baio are speaking at the convention. Hahaha, Trump must be seething Brady and Rothsberger is not speaking there.
Brady does not speak on behalf of political candidates. Trump is the third presidential candidate he has known, played golf with. He didn’t openly support Kerry or Romney and he’s not appearing at a convention for Trump. That should come as no surprise to Trump.
Clint Eastwood’s empty chair must’ve turned him down.
Even a empty chair has to weight its principles, Dinah.