speaking of empathy, I think it's good to practice empathy. but sometimes it requires effort. today I will meditate on imagining and understanding a world through a cowardly libs eyes, where half of the GOP base isn't Milo, David Duke & Tcot Goonies posting Benghazi memes 50 times a day. I want to think it's possible these people need to be convinced to vote for Hillary & this is the comment that pushed them over the edge to vote for Trump.

with 60 days to go it's almost certainly easier to degrade one's opponent & their voters than to persuade any of one's deplorable opponent's deluded likely voters. Willie Horton tactics aren't deployed to expand one's own voters.

May have been a bad idea for HRC to say something like that, but I'm not really surprised that something like it has been said, and I WILL be surprised if others don't repeat something quite like that in various forms during the next 2 months.

It's pretty clear to everyone that unapologetic racists are really enthused about drumpf's candidacy. It's something that is true, and ugly, and his weakass cowardly failure to sharply denounce them repeatedly, continually, disqualifies him from the job he's campaigning for. Why not rub it all over him?

Half the Republican base is and has been batshit crazy. This has existed since the mid 90s, and was cemented with President Obama's inauguration. Thr way you figure it out is you simply ask someone if he was born here.


But the person who ostensibly will be our next president probably can't point it out by the way she said it...she can do it by the amazing speech she made about alt right and racism. She needs to remain presidential and not go down to his level, even if she comes from a correct place

I WOULD be mean if I were her. Be mean about how uninformed he is. Irritate him. Tie him to the Republicans that back him. Being nice is foolish at this point. But you have to be smart about it. That was not smart. She's stronger than him, much stronger. Don't drop to his pathetic level.

pacino wrote:
But the person who ostensibly will be our next president probably can't point it out by the way she said it...she can do it by the amazing speech she made about alt right and racism. She needs to remain presidential and not go down to his level, even if she comes from a correct place

drsmooth wrote:
May have been a bad idea for HRC to say something like that, but I'm not really surprised that something like it has been said, and I WILL be surprised if others don't repeat something quite like that in various forms during the next 2 months.

My roll up is that HRC's comments were simply unnecessary. It restates and reframes her likability problems where she on purpose slams some portion of the GOP voters, and accidentally defames some people who were planning to either exit the voting process or perhaps even vote for her. It was just dumb to energize, and reintroduce doubt into the GOP ranks. If elected president, these are "her people" as citizens of the united states.

I just need someone to profile for me the R voter undecided about casting a drumpf vote who is somehow so provoked into solidarity with racists by HRCs remarks that s/he determines to vote for drumpf after all.

Having trouble picturing that.

I'm still not voting for drumpf btw, however much HRC may misoverestimate the frankly racist share of the R base

To thephan's point it may energize some Trump supporters to get out and vote and certainly does nothing to help her image with moderates. It's just hard to see any good coming from it except that it may move the discussion away from emails for a bit.

When Pence knows where his applause lines are in his speech is, he's a pretty decent public speaker. The fact that he could not find the attack, or really counter attack, in his speech makes you think twice about where the material is coming from, but he is so much more respectable when it comes to public speaking then his running mate it's amazing the contrast.

Really this is the first time I heard him speak at length that all. And it wasn't a stump speech it was more of an engagement speech, so that was a good showcase. Truth be told his material was pretty vanilla, so it was perhaps more about outreach.

I guess another rather odd happenstance is the Tim Kane as a very good public speaker, so both the VP candidates are better speakers and public personalities then there lead on the ticket. If you have not heard Tim Kane speak, and not one of these barn burner things he's been doing lately, you should. I don't think he is particularly good at those sing to the base things FWIW. He is very cogent and comprehensive, while still being approachable.

I'm torn here. I think she's absolutely right, and this could actually be a brilliant political move.

For weeks, Trumps been pandering to AA voters in churches and communities, not to get more AA votes, but to make white people feel less guilty about voting for him. Hillary just reversed that with this statement.

Now, the talk for the next week could be about defending her statement or walking it back - but a substantial amount of time WILL be spent discussing the ugliness displayed by Trump's supporters.

OR

She just blew an absolute GIFT of a Friday, where Trump stated he'd start a war over hand gestures and military posturing (after calling her a War hawk), and a week of loving up on Putin.

Then again, the things he says and does never seem to make a difference.

Mike Pence, candidate for Vice President of the United States, feels racists deserve our respect.

He must never be elected to any public office ever again

JFLNYC wrote:...does nothing to help her image with moderates....

I'm not an HRC fan. I feel I'm pretty moderate. I'm voting for her, instead of sewage. Feels good, man

drsmooth wrote:Mike Pence, candidate for Vice President of the United States, feels racists deserve our respect.

He must never be elected to any public office ever again

This is the other possibility - force the Trump campaign to defend racists, bigots, homophobes, etc. Makes them look like they're okay with this type of thing - which they are, but they don't like to admit it.

drsmooth wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:...does nothing to help her image with moderates....

I'm not an HRC fan. I feel I'm pretty moderate. I'm voting for her, instead of sewage. Feels good, man

You feel like you're pretty moderate?

In that case I feel like a pony.

The liberals on this board need to grow a backbone.

Doll Is Mine wrote:The liberals on this board need to grow a backbone.

Recognizing nuance, and its effects on a tight race is oh-so-weak.

Please, dude.

I've been called a lot of things, but never spineless.

in this case I would agree with DiM. you appear spineless, Jamie. I know you're not, but in this instance that's the optics & that's going to hurt your poll #s with moderate board lurkers.

Don't think this will come back to haunt her. Only people offended enough by that statement are already voting for him. Totally different than the 47% thing.

Youseff wrote:in this case I would agree with DiM. you appear spineless, Jamie. I know you're not, but in this instance that's the optics & that's going to hurt your poll #s with moderate board lurkers.

And I'll never live it down.

jerseyhoya wrote:In that case I feel like a pony.

Dunno about how you feel, but as far as how you're sometimes perceived, you're half right (guess which half)