2016 US ELECTION: Official Results Thread

[Simon_Jester]

A quick Google search shows that she is both British and lives in the UK and, and she has been fired.

I consider a foreigner making probably-joking remarks about the assassination of another country's leader to be in less bad taste than a citizen of that country.

If an American talks about someone assassinating Putin, that is probably not grounds to accuse them of a crime against Russia, or for that matter to accuse them of left-wing political hate speech or whatever.

Why? It's not in any way illegal and it's been SOP forever.

Because it would show that they not only enabled the rise of a raging bigot to the office of the Presidency, but that their plan spectacularly backfired.

I don't know, seems to me that's reason enough to fire someone.

I would argue that the people who conceived of this strategy should not be senior strategists ever again. But that's a lot like how if a general loses a battle in a way that suggests poor military judgment, you don't give them another chance to lose another battle. The task is too important to assign to someone who may be prone to botching important decisions.

And we've just had it illustrated, in a very effective way, why the "encourage fanatical idiots in the primary so that the mainstream candidate has to deal with wingnut legacy positions going into the general election" strategy isn't a good plan. Because what happens if your fanatic wins? What if, a la the play The Producers, the show you intended to be a flop turns out to succeed beyond your expectations?

It's a truism that generals plan to fight the last war. I suspect a lot of strategists planned to refight 2012. Which in itself wasn't such a bad idea... but they missed two important facts:

1) Trump was a kind of wingnut candidate we hadn't seen in the 2012 election. He's cunning, he's extremely good at selling people on things, and he had nationwide fame before he even ran for office. This was the kind of guy who actually wins elections against "favored son" party establishment candidates, rather than just melting down like Rick Perry or Herman Cain. He had unusual potential as a fringe candidate. Now, a lot of people didn't realize this at the time, myself included... but you really, really want people in charge of your campaign who CAN recognize such things.

2) Clinton wasn't going to have the same level of support from the Obama coalition that Obama did, unless other strategic decisions were made... decisions the DNC and the Clinton campaign failed to make.

[Thanas]

And she is not wrong- I mean, 6 point drop in the last week, following his announcement. 1 point would've put her over.

We have not see a more blatant interference in a US election in our lifetimes.


Other stuff could've let her win despite that, but that is one of the big factor, very easy to argue the *biggest* factor.

Yeah this was what definitely killed her here among undecideds and moderates. It just so eloquently reinforced all the stereotypes.

I really hope Comey is happy with himself.

[Flagg]

A quick Google search shows that she is both British and lives in the UK and, and she has been fired.

I consider a foreigner making probably-joking remarks about the assassination of another country's leader to be in less bad taste than a citizen of that country.

If an American talks about someone assassinating Putin, that is probably not grounds to accuse them of a crime against Russia, or for that matter to accuse them of left-wing political hate speech or whatever.

Why? It's not in any way illegal and it's been SOP forever.

Because it would show that they not only enabled the rise of a raging bigot to the office of the Presidency, but that their plan spectacularly backfired.

I don't know, seems to me that's reason enough to fire someone.

I would argue that the people who conceived of this strategy should not be senior strategists ever again. But that's a lot like how if a general loses a battle in a way that suggests poor military judgment, you don't give them another chance to lose another battle. The task is too important to assign to someone who may be prone to botching important decisions.

And we've just had it illustrated, in a very effective way, why the "encourage fanatical idiots in the primary so that the mainstream candidate has to deal with wingnut legacy positions going into the general election" strategy isn't a good plan. Because what happens if your fanatic wins? What if, a la the play The Producers, the show you intended to be a flop turns out to succeed beyond your expectations?

It's a truism that generals plan to fight the last war. I suspect a lot of strategists planned to refight 2012. Which in itself wasn't such a bad idea... but they missed two important facts:

1) Trump was a kind of wingnut candidate we hadn't seen in the 2012 election. He's cunning, he's extremely good at selling people on things, and he had nationwide fame before he even ran for office. This was the kind of guy who actually wins elections against "favored son" party establishment candidates, rather than just melting down like Rick Perry or Herman Cain. He had unusual potential as a fringe candidate. Now, a lot of people didn't realize this at the time, myself included... but you really, really want people in charge of your campaign who CAN recognize such things.

2) Clinton wasn't going to have the same level of support from the Obama coalition that Obama did, unless other strategic decisions were made... decisions the DNC and the Clinton campaign failed to make.

TBH, I wonder if there's still a need for a robust "ground game" due to the effectiveness of social media. Because from everything I've heard Clinton had a massive ground game while President-Elect Pedophie Rapist Donnie Douchebag had barely any "boots on the ground". It may well be a portend of the future of elections in this shithole failed experiment of a country. Assuming there are going to be more national elections since President-Elect Rapist Pedophile Psychopath Donnie Douchebag is authoritarian as hell and 1/4 of his transition team consists of his spawn.

[Flagg]

And she is not wrong- I mean, 6 point drop in the last week, following his announcement. 1 point would've put her over.

We have not see a more blatant interference in a US election in our lifetimes.


Other stuff could've let her win despite that, but that is one of the big factor, very easy to argue the *biggest* factor.

Yeah this was what definitely killed her here among undecideds and moderates. It just so eloquently reinforced all the stereotypes.

I really hope Comey is happy with himself.

I'm sure he is. He got exactly what he and a small but vocal and powerful minority of diehard Donnie Douchebag supporters within the Fucking Bunch of Imbeciles wanted. Back in the day the son of a bitch would've been tarred, feathered, run out of town on a rail, and left to die in a ditch. So I'm glad for his (and our) sake that we're in the 21st century where only a persons character get dragged through the mud.

[cosmicalstorm]

So imagine if there had been a equal sized batch of corrupt as hell emails from Trump.
Honestly I was expecting someone to hack his internal mails and dump them, might still happen, I am guessing a lot of people are going back to comm using papers.

Anway, some of them talking about "Going to Hawaii to eat hotdogs with no buns", enjoying satanic themed dinners, "the forgetting of Pizza MAPs with no hair" and other obvious ciphers for nasty stuff.

Would these emails not be printed on every pro HRC newspaper, blog and board 24/7 for the entire election? Would the FBI not investigate until after the election.


Yeah Right

[Terralthra]

cosmicalstorm, I have literally no idea what you're talking about. Provide links to these emails?

[K. A. Pital]

I think he's referring to the conspiracy theories linking Clinton to child abductors through the Podesta mails, or something. I'm not up to date on the latest and weirdest things that originate in Trumpspace, but could very well be that.

[cosmicalstorm]

Guess it deserves a separate thread, I'm not going to start one. I will also add that I'm fully aware of the possibility that these e-mails are manipulated. If I was doxxing someone I would probably add some untrue stuff here and there.

My main pointer is that this stuff would have been on the news networks AROUND THE CLOCK if they concerned Trump.

( Sooner or later I expect someone to post a video of him doing blow of a hookers ass or something, was that Pussygrab really the only dirt they could find??)

Other emails were also released that insinuated Podesta’s involvement in a pedophilic sex ring. Several of them mentioned “pizza”, “cheese”, “pasta,” and other foods in a cryptic manner.

In one email sent to Podesta, the email reads that “As for dinner I’m not particularly fussy about the type of pizza I enjoy, just as long as there’s no hair on it, I hate hair on my pizza!” [sic]

Another email to John, reads “I’m dreaming about your hotdog stand in Hawaii…”

And yet another email sent from Podesta himself asks a member of the Sandler Foundation, “the realtor found a handkerchief (I think it has a map that seems pizza-related. Is it yorus?” [sic]

http://shark-tank.com/2016/11/04/clinto ... ng-emails/

[FTeik]

And she is not wrong- I mean, 6 point drop in the last week, following his announcement. 1 point would've put her over.

We have not see a more blatant interference in a US election in our lifetimes.


Other stuff could've let her win despite that, but that is one of the big factor, very easy to argue the *biggest* factor.

Yeah this was what definitely killed her here among undecideds and moderates. It just so eloquently reinforced all the stereotypes.

I really hope Comey is happy with himself.

Because the formerly democratic rust-belt-states switching over to Trump, because Clinton and the establishment of the democratic party was convinced to have them in their pocket and didn't bother to show up there during the campaign have nothing to do with that.

Looking over the postings and arguements in this thread from the beginning Trump winning shouldn't be such a huge surprise. For the last two decades the overall trend seems to favour the republicans with their winnings on the state-levels and in regards to congress and senate. It just wasn't so obvious, because Obama won the last two presidential elections. And remember, that he also became President as the outsider-candidate, pushing Clinton the side in the primaries. Anyone remember "Yes, we can." and "It's time for change?" Bernie Sanders would have been such a candidate like Obama, but not Hillary Clinton. In a way the electorate continued to vote against what is percieved as the "establishment", so why are so many people surprised, that this didn't change? And I also think a lot of people underestimated how many hated Clinton and what she stood for. It doesn't matter, that the hate was justified or not, but if you are in politics for thirty years there is a lot, that can stick and it is also a sad fact, that the good you do doesn't matter as much as where you screwed up.

[K. A. Pital]

Turnout for Clinton was miserable compared to Obama.

Blaming it all on the emails is laughable.

[Mr Bean]

Turnout for Clinton was miserable compared to Obama.

Blaming it all on the emails is laughable.

Listen if it was the emails fault, then it's not her fault. See how happy feeling that idea is? Not, four million democratic votes vanished in four years. Oh no the problem is all the emails. If not the Berniebros if not the media hitjobs if not the double standard on Trump media. Whatever it is you can be sure it's NOT her fault.

It is and always will be everyone elses. I'm re-reading Game Change right now and man is it spooky the day after the election reading about how Hillary flipped out after Iowa blaming everyone but herself for her loss. History repeats, sometimes in more than outline.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Of course it isn't specifically the e-mails fault. There were much broader reasons. But I would argue that the e-mails are at least EMBLEMATIC of many of those broader reasons, insofar as they served to reinforce the already widespread image of Clinton as being untrustworthy, distant, corrupt, elitist, etc. etc.

[Flagg]

Turnout for Clinton was miserable compared to Obama.

Blaming it all on the emails is laughable.

Listen if it was the emails fault, then it's not her fault. See how happy feeling that idea is? Not, four million democratic votes vanished in four years. Oh no the problem is all the emails. If not the Berniebros if not the media hitjobs if not the double standard on Trump media. Whatever it is you can be sure it's NOT her fault.

It is and always will be everyone elses. I'm re-reading Game Change right now and man is it spooky the day after the election reading about how Hillary flipped out after Iowa blaming everyone but herself for her loss. History repeats, sometimes in more than outline.

The emails were her fault, that's why there was a massive years long investigation with congressional hearings and stupid shits like you predicting indictments coming down at any time on a daily basis. And they found nothing and the matter was settled. Then out of the blue Comey and his fellow Trumpists in the FBI announced that there was another investigation in late October only to say about a week later "oh, never mind, nothing to see here" after the damage was done. It was a clear case of a Trump cabal within the FBI using their power to damage the front runner.

Were they why she lost? No, not by themselves, but they did damage her and I'm sure played a part. But at the end of the day I honestly believe that so much emphasis is put on polls that people with hectic scheduals who would have managed to vote despite it being a hardship saw that she was roughly 5 points ahead give or take a few, and stayed home thinking she had it in the bag.

[Flagg]

Of course it isn't specifically the e-mails fault. There were much broader reasons. But I would argue that the e-mails are at least EMBLEMATIC of many of those broader reasons, insofar as they served to reinforce the already widespread image of Clinton as being untrustworthy, distant, corrupt, elitist, etc. etc.

Which is really funny because all of that describes Donnie Douchebag to a T, only much worse on his end.

[K. A. Pital]

His greatest success was somehow convincing the voters that he was anything but.

Twitter, "telling it like it is" and the like. Heh.

[Flagg]

His greatest success was somehow convincing the voters that he was anything but.

Twitter, "telling it like it is" and the like. Heh.

His supporters have to literally be the dumbest motherfuckers in all of Earths history. Every single "negative Clinton trait" was Trump magnified by 1,000,000. Plus there's all the being a pedophile, rapist, and textbook psychopath. He's honestly the single most repugnant public figure in the US and we have people like OJ Simpson, Charlie Sheen, and Bill Bellichek.

[Simon_Jester]

Looking over the postings and arguements in this thread from the beginning Trump winning shouldn't be such a huge surprise. For the last two decades the overall trend seems to favour the republicans with their winnings on the state-levels and in regards to congress and senate. It just wasn't so obvious, because Obama won the last two presidential elections. And remember, that he also became President as the outsider-candidate, pushing Clinton the side in the primaries. Anyone remember "Yes, we can." and "It's time for change?" Bernie Sanders would have been such a candidate like Obama, but not Hillary Clinton.

Sanders might have been a candidate like Obama, but there's no reason to assume he would have succeeded.

First, Obama had an advantage in getting blacks to the polls, which I'm not sure any white candidate can duplicate. That helped flip a number of states, including some that seldom go for Democrats otherwise.

Second, Sanders is selling to a more beaten-down and immiserized crowd of youth voters than Obama was in 2008. This is a condemnation of American status quo, but it's still a reality: a lot of people sat this one out, and would probably still have sat it out no matter who was running.

Third, Sanders would have 'socialist' thrown at him very hard, and that would hurt him among a lot of the old-voter demographics that (in the event) wound up breaking for Trump.

I honestly don't know.

A lot of people who honestly thought Clinton would do a better job of running for president than Sanders (myself included) were wrong. I was expecting Clinton to do a lot more to actively sell herself as a candidate, and in retrospect should probably have known better. It has never really been in her political character to inspire movements to follow her. While she may be a talented political operator, it's clear that her talent lies mainly in manipulating the boardroom-level decision-makers, not the general public.

Turnout for Clinton was miserable compared to Obama.

Blaming it all on the emails is laughable.

Listen if it was the emails fault, then it's not her fault. See how happy feeling that idea is? Not, four million democratic votes vanished in four years. Oh no the problem is all the emails. If not the Berniebros if not the media hitjobs if not the double standard on Trump media. Whatever it is you can be sure it's NOT her fault.

It is and always will be everyone elses. I'm re-reading Game Change right now and man is it spooky the day after the election reading about how Hillary flipped out after Iowa blaming everyone but herself for her loss. History repeats, sometimes in more than outline.

Clinton losing the election can be blamed on dozens of things.

It can be blamed on Clinton's weaknesses as a candidate (I can think of several). It can be blamed on the Republicans' campaign to discredit her, which has been going on for most of our adult lives. It can be blamed on this group or that group failing to vote in their own interests. It can be blamed on misallocation of resources by the Clinton campaign, neglecting states that were very close and could have been tipped with more resources.

It can be blamed on the emails causing last-minute depression of turnout and support among potential Clinton voters

Changing any one of those things might well have led to a Clinton victory.

However, the emails are in some ways the most egregious of these issues, because they don't just represent someone making a bad decision. They represent someone in a position of trust (the FBI) actively deciding to do something very questionable (make poorly supported allegations of criminal misconduct), in a way that would predictably interfere in a federal election.

[Q99]

Even *with the e-mails getting more coverage than all policy combined*, were it not for Comey, it looks like she would've gotten probably in the range of +4-6% over Trump, with +2.5~ being what she needed

[Flagg]

Simon, in the case of Comey's email torpedo, RW SuperPACs (who were clearly illegally being run by the Donnie Douchebag campaign) and his campaign itself were running ads about the "new" email allegations long after Cunty Comey walked it back saying there was nothing there (in a very clear CYA manner). But so many slanderous lies were aired about her and no one in the media was really willing to say anything for fear of retaliation. And Donnie Douchebag has bragged proudly in the not so distant past that he not only believes in delivering retribution and payback, he enjoys it.

[Q99]

Sanders might have been a candidate like Obama, but there's no reason to assume he would have succeeded.

First, Obama had an advantage in getting blacks to the polls, which I'm not sure any white candidate can duplicate. That helped flip a number of states, including some that seldom go for Democrats otherwise.

Second, Sanders is selling to a more beaten-down and immiserized crowd of youth voters than Obama was in 2008. This is a condemnation of American status quo, but it's still a reality: a lot of people sat this one out, and would probably still have sat it out no matter who was running.

Third, Sanders would have 'socialist' thrown at him very hard, and that would hurt him among a lot of the old-voter demographics that (in the event) wound up breaking for Trump.

I honestly don't know.

Also? Sanders campaign was not nearly as positive as Obama's. "Hope and Change" vs "The System is Rigged."

Bernie Sanders really hit a cord with some Democrats... and fell flat with others. Like, very flat, many 20- and 30- point losses in a variety of states. Obama got near everyone (even ones he was in second with, he was still competitive) and, importantly, he did so *during* the primary.

If Bernie got the nod somehow, then he'd pretty much have to refocus on getting the rest of the Democrats to unify from the ground up.

[Elheru Aran]

Getting back to a more fundamental point of time as far as the Presidential campaigns went...

It says something to me that there were so few Democrat candidates, even though in theory the position was completely open-- no incumbent re-run to worry about, and Biden was a potential shoo-in because have you met him he's awesome, but he opted out. Was Clinton such a powerful candidate in her own right... or were the other Democrat possibilities afraid of running against her? Is it more a case of there simply not being many popular, highly visible Democratic politicians on the national stage? Are there really that many Republicans (wasn't it like 16 or 18 this go-around? jesus) that are potential Presidential candidates versus Democrats?

[Q99]

Hillary was a very powerful candidate going in.

And there was something of a gap of dem candidates thanks to the Tea Party Wave knocking out some promising Democrats. You have young bloods, who may be promising but can afford to wait, or people like Warren, who're in the same age range as Hillary and generally supported her, but not a lot in the middle.

[MKSheppard]

So imagine if there had been a equal sized batch of corrupt as hell emails from Trump.

Trump doesn't really do e-mails. He tweets, yes. But no emails. That's why there aren't any.

[MKSheppard]

https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton

https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinto ... of-04/view

First two pages:

On July 10, 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated a full investigation based upon a referral received from the US Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), submitted in accordance with Section 811(c) of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1995 and dated July 6,2015. regarding the potential unauthorized transmission and storage of classified information on the personal e-mail server of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The FBI's investigation focused on determining whether classified information was transmitted or stored on unclassified systems in violation of federal criminal statutes and whether classified information was compromised by unauthorized individuals, to include foreign governments or intelligence services, via cyber intrusion or other means.

(U/FOUO) In furtherance of its investigation, the FBI acquired computer equipment and mobile devices, to include equipment associated with two separate e-mail server systems used by Clinton, and forensically reviewed the items to recover relevant evidence. In response to FBI requests for classification determinations in support of this investigation. US Intelligence Community (USIC) agencies determined that 81 e-mail chains, which FBI investigation determined were transmitted and stored on Clinton's UNCLASSIFIED personal server systems, contained classified information ranging from the CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET/SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAM levels at the time they were sent between 2009-2013.

USIC agencies determined that 68 of these e-mail chains remain classified. In addition, the classification determination process administered by the US Department of State (State) in connection with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation identified approximately 2,000 additional e-mails currently classified CONFIDENTIAL and I e-mail currently classified SECRET, which FBI investigation determined were transmitted and stored on at least two of Clinton's personal server systems.

Mr. Bean, would you like to tell us what the yellow section means for the average person if they had such items on their bathroom home-built server?

[Gandalf]

The CIA interferes in foreign elections, the FBI domestic, I suppose.

So imagine if there had been a equal sized batch of corrupt as hell emails from Trump.

Trump doesn't really do e-mails. He tweets, yes. But no emails. That's why there aren't any.

Even then, what would have to have been in them to affect his support? His supporters know he's all types of sleazy. They know he's scum. But what's important is that he's on their side. It's the same way American liberals overlooked Obama's national security policies because of stuff like the ACA.