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Senate The 2016 General Presidential Election

Discussion in 'Community' started by Point Given , Jul 28, 2016.

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  1. JediVision

    JediVision Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 6, 2015
    It's not really a matter of Clinton being "Jack Bauer" or not. It's just that maybe, just maybe, some different low-level staffer says "maybe we should take a look at this" at some seemingly innocuous piece of intelligence. It's impossible to say either way.
     
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  2. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    Rachel-- I don't "hate" W. Also, as I've posted, W had no real chance of winning a third term. Reagan is the better example, and I don't want to think too much about Reagan going up against Dukakis. Reagan likely would have won that contest, presuming his health didn't impede him in the debates (as it began to in 1984).

    We didn't have term limits until after WWII, and we did pretty okay. I don't see FDR as a one time exception, except by force, and also due to his extraordinary skills as a politician. Someone else has gifts equal to FDR, and he's currently the President. I'd just as soon keep him on the job.

    I do think it's worth the risk. Perhaps that's where we'll have to agree to disagree. I think politics in general would eliminate most people from being in contention for a third term in office as president.
     
  3. JediVision

    JediVision Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 6, 2015
    Nope, sorry. You can't make a new rule just because Obama is a pretty good President. You don't get to pick and choose. How would you feel about W having the chance to win a third term? [/quote]

    I agree with your general viewpoint on Presidential term limits, but George W. Bush had no chance of winning that election, to the extent where to me it's inconceivable that even would have ran.
     
  4. Boba Nekhbet

    Boba Nekhbet Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 30, 2014
    I'm like at least thirteen because COPPA. I promise. But listen, I'm gonna go through the hassle of putting One Direction on pause long enough to respond to this:

    I honestly think y'all are putting rose-colored glasses on 2008 and on the American electoral system. Bush was unpopular, yes, and Obama ran against many of his policies, yes, but there's a difference between running against someone's policies when they're being forced out anyway and running against someone who half the country still managed to vote for in 2004 and who can provide, maybe not hope and inspiration, but continuity.

    I mean, Vision's post and his point was the more salient one, I'll agree. Probably Bush was never even president without term limits, but assuming he was and no one ever went through his 2nd term with the thought "Well no matter what it's his last", a Dem win in 2008 - and specifically an Obama win - is definitely not guaranteed in my mind.
     
  5. JediVision

    JediVision Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 6, 2015
    Also, this may be kind of silly, but I think it's worth throwing out there: How much of the current public approval of Obama can be attributed to the general knowledge that he's on his way out? It's easy to be a little more sympathetic to someone and give them more leeway when you know it's good riddance anyway in a couple months. (Disclaimer here: I know Obama would crush Trump specifically, but I'm just talking about the general level of public approval) Surely the level of approval George W. Bush currently enjoys doesn't mean most of those people actually want him to be President again.
     
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  6. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Yes, but by 2008 his approval rating was 28%. Even Trump has never managed such abysmal ratings.
     
  7. JediVision

    JediVision Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 6, 2015
    Iraq was just turning south when Bush was re-elected; it had been a complete and total disaster for three years by 2008. Add that to the beginning of the Great Recession, and continuity was the last thing anyone wanted.

    And I wasn't asking your age to be condescending; one of the things that's disorienting about growing into your thirties is that you can have conversations with full-grown, intelligent adults who weren't even around for things that you remember from your teenage years. It's hard to overstate just how much of a negative "in the air" feeling there was towards Bush during the last two years or so of his second term. He. had. no. chance. Period.
     
  8. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    I guess I disagree. To my way of seeing things, W was politically dead by 2008, and really by 2007. I remember Obama being thought of by many as the President as soon as he won election, and not a few before that point. He was clearly the strongest politician in the room when that big meeting happened in September of 2008, the one that McCain called. W's support among non-Republicans had plummeted. In the face of a vibrant man who was saying what a lot of people had on their minds, and came across as an active choice for something better, I don't think W could have come close to winning the election. I think it still would have been a landslide.

    The 2008 Democratic primary got its edge in part because it was clear that whoever won it was more than likely going to be President.

    Edit: I think Dani still brings up a good point, though. Sometimes you just never know. Paul LePage looked dead in Maine in his first term, and he still managed to win re-election. It's hard to know how the opposition is going to shape up. Harry Reid took advantage of a terrible opponent in 2010 to win an election he had no business winning.
     
  9. Boba Nekhbet

    Boba Nekhbet Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 30, 2014
    Yeah, but again, without term limits I honestly don't think we can assume that his approval rating would have been 28%. The incumbency advantage is really very, very powerful.

    Um, do you start a lot of non-condescending questions with "um?" No, but really, I actually was listening to One Direction. Ask anyone.
     
  10. JediVision

    JediVision Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 6, 2015
    As indicated, I think it would have been lower; it's easier to say you approve of someone when you know they are hitting the road in a couple months.
     
  11. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001

    I agree. It may have been even lower.

    I kid, though, and I agree that incumbency is a tremendous advantage. I think where that advantage sometimes thins is against a strong opponent who actively brings something new or different to the table, rather than a variation of "anyone but the incumbent."

    In terms of the presidency, I think 2004 is about as good an example as we'll get of the power of the incumbency. I think it's what got W re-elected, or at least played a major role in it.
     
  12. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 27, 2000
    But now you're just playing crazy what if games. Why in that scenario would this have to do with who was President? Maybe things would have been different if one different staffer had been hired. But this is all kind of nuts to speculate on.

    I'm just saying, the balance of probability says that 9/11, a massive and long-planned operation involving dozens of people, would have happened no matter who was President.

    We didn't have de jure term limits, but we had a de facto one. Before FDR, only TR had served more than two terms, and that was only because he served out part of McKinley's term for his first time in office. Other than that, only three others even seriously sought a third term.

    As soon as someone (FDR) did serve three or more full terms, we realized that we finally needed to codify something that had basically just been an unspoken rule for the majority of Presidents. Because they realized essentially exactly what I've been saying: it might have been okay to have FDR as President for 12+ years.

    But now that he'd set that precedent, a new precedent, that might supercede the one Washington had set and which we'd followed for 150 years more or less. It's likely that without the term limit being imposed, we would have seen decades of Presidents saying, "well we used to basically stick to two terms. But that's outdated now. Look at what FDR did. Now I want that." There's a good chance it would have spiraled out of control and led to bad outcomes in some way.

    Finally, I just want to add... It's also easy for us to lionize FDR for his admittedly helpful leadership role during the war. But I imagine we'd probably feel a bit differently about the prospect of FDR serving six terms or something if we were Japanese-American. How do you know FDR wouldn't have moved to, say, strip them all of citizenship after the war?

    Like I said, FDR was far from perfect. And I firmly believe that history shows that, on balance, the longer someone stays in power, the more likely they are to abuse that power and cause harm. Yes, it's even possible for Obama. Because it's possible and even reasonably probable for most people. There are few examples from history of truly benevolent kings.
     
  13. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    Rachel-- "we" didn't realize that we needed to codify an unspoken rule. Republicans got tired of having their asses kicked repeatedly, and did something to ensure that it would never happen that way again. That's not to say that some principled ideas don't coexist with that, but it was fundamentally a partisan maneuver.

    I'd much rather have had FDR dealing with postwar issues than Truman. He had a much better grasp on such things. He's lionized in part because he was brilliant. Not faultless by any means, and not just for the obvious reason(s). He had exceptional vision, and used it to the U.S.'s advantage.
     
  14. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    Since the new rule was put in place, the only presidents who could have possibly been elected to a 3rd term are Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton. And Reagan probably wasn't fit for a third term, and I think Eisenhower had health problems too. So really, the only person that probably would have gotten a 3rd term is Bill Clinton.

    (Truman was too unpopular, Kennedy died, Johnson was too unpopular for even a second elected term, Nixon was forced from office, Ford couldn't even win one elected term, Carter couldn't win a second term, Bush I couldn't win a second term).

    And there was absolutely no way George W. Bush could have won a 3rd term in 2008.
     
  15. JediVision

    JediVision Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 6, 2015
    I think there's more specificity there; no wartime incumbent has ever lost an election. (I believe)

    I read a quote in a book once that made me laugh out loud, and I've always remembered it. It said, "When people were watching the Reagan-Carter debate, they were watching to find out if they could get rid of Jimmy Carter without destroying the world. Reagan convinced them they could."
     
  16. Boba Nekhbet

    Boba Nekhbet Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 30, 2014
    Yeah, I'll step back and say that I was definitely reaching by making it seem totally implausible that Obama would have beat Bush in 2008 in my initial reply to Wocky. But I still contend that the different factors that exist where no one is living under the assumption that the President is only operating for a limited time don't guarantee that people would have necessarily felt as negatively about Bush in 2008, or that - even if they did - he still wouldn't have won.

    Sometimes when things are going badly, people prefer the comfort of continuity over the scariness of the unknown. Even if they aren't particularly happy with the continuity, the change is scarier. Obama ran on a campaign of change and got the vote out. But at the same time McCain was too moderate for the hardcore Bush base, and lost favor with the moderates by pandering. Bush wouldn't have had to navigate all the uncertain political waters McCain had to, he wouldn't have had the Palin albatross around his neck, and he would have had experience of twice before appealing to a strong, numerous, existing voter base.
     
  17. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    That's true about Palin. W only had the prince of darkness at his side instead.

    Overall, I think I'm on board with the idea that perhaps W could have done better than many would assume (including myself). I think there's a good case to be made that continuity is appealing, particularly in times of crisis. I don't think it would have been enough, but perhaps it would have helped W to fare better than McCain did.
     
  18. JediVision

    JediVision Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 6, 2015
    I understand it's a crazy "what if" game; that was my point. I was directing this point at Wocky asking me how I could say Obama wouldn't be President. Maybe it happens; maybe not. My point was there's a large series of such "maybe, maybe not" type of scenarios along the causal chain of Obama's election. To say all or even most of them would have turned out the exact same way if there were no term limit is pretty ridiculous, I think.
     
  19. Yodaminch

    Yodaminch Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 6, 2002

    Honesty, I'm simply saying his having a third term means several things might have changed so we simply don't know one way or the other. I'm not arguing that Clinton would have known and prevented anything. We simply don't know what would have happened in that scenario.
     
  20. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 27, 2000
    By people you know maybe. That's ignoring a huge percentage of people in this country who hate Obama and firmly think he's one of the worst Presidents ever. I'm not saying that's a sane viewpoint... But hey, neither is thinking Reagan was one of the worst ever, and just as many people firmly believe that.

    Again, you see things in a very narrow way. Obama is popular, but he's simultaneously very unpopular with others.


    I was about to say.. She's like the same age as you, dude. But the One Direction thing isn't a joke. I mean, One Direction is a joke, obvs. But Dani's not joking about loving them :p



    We'll have to disagree about that. I think it was fortuitous that we wound up with Truman, even if people didn't quite realize it for decades.

    And again, I worry about what post-war policies FDR would have had towards Japanese-Americans. And precisely because he was so massively popular, he could have gotten away with a lot, shaped people's views nationwide. No one would have thought twice about it, for the most part. And that's exactly the danger of not having term limits. Popular presidents could absolutely become dictators.


    Reagan was not mentally qualified for a third term... But that doesn't mean he wouldn't have won one. This was a different era. They kept that secret well. Reagan is actually a great example of how scary it could have been had we not had term limits in his era. Because I think he would have won a third term, to really be in power to finish off the Cold War. But that would have been manifestly dangerous, simply because of his disease.
     
  21. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    As Russia demonstrates, term limits do not necessarily stop prevent a demagogue from staying in power.

    Edit: LePage is a unique situation, and has to do more with his opposition stubbornly divided where he doesn't win a majority, but has the most votes.

    What I find bizarre is that the Republicans never thought it would impact them. Did they think that the Democrats would be the only party with re-electable candidates? Or did they think they could just undo it when they got a good candidate?
     
  22. JediVision

    JediVision Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 6, 2015
    Point taken. Obviously, I was being condescending. But my condescending didn't stem from a perceived lack of intelligence. To me, there was just such an "in the air" vibe of hatred against George W. Bush by 2008 that I figured anyone who thought he could have won just wasn't old enough to have been an adult at that time. Obviously, I was wrong. I apologize for my self-centeredness.
     
  23. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    Again, you see things in a very narrow way. Obama is popular, but he's simultaneously very unpopular with others.

    That's true in a limited way. In the big picture, Obama is the most popular president in their eighth year in office since WWII. Few have reached the heights he's at right now in terms of job approval, though of course polling didn't exist as a real science until after WWII.

    We'll have to disagree about that. I think it was fortuitous that we wound up with Truman, even if people didn't quite realize it for decades.


    He's an overrated president in many ways, and nothing close to his predecessor (or his successor). Could have been worse for sure, but that's about the most I can say.

    solojones

    There was zero threat of FDR becoming a dictator. He had a chance to do that in 1933 and actively chose not to. I don't think he would have done anything to stand in the way of Japanese-Americans resuming full citizenship, aside from that.
     
  24. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 27, 2000
    Erm, sorry but what happened in both Russia and Turkey is specifically impossible in the US because of our term limits. Because unlike those nations, we don't have a separate head of state and government. Putin and Erdogan essentially have no term limits because they were able to move into being the head of state, then used their leverage to change laws to essentially make the President the head of government, rather than the PM. They have also then been able to stay in that new role essentially indefinitely because of changing term limits laws.

    It's actually a perfect demonstration of why we need term limits for POTUS. Because in the US, that will prevent us from having a Putin. Because there's no ceremonial head of state role for them to run for then change into something else. If they're out of the Presidency, they're really out of executive power.

    In short, Putin is a great example on why you need to keep your term limits and designed laws about checks on power. If you change those laws for one guy, he can just become a dictator.

    You're sort of defeating your own argument...
     
  25. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    I'm not really concerned with the possibility of the American electorate returning someone like that to power, in part because I think there would be strong opposition on the other side. Perhaps I have more faith in our electorate than some.
     
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