Champuckett
Member

Campaign over. The media nailed the Donald's for exactly what they are. Time to move over, and let Hillary swoop in and resume her rightful place as the unchallenged next ruler over the peasants of the North American sector. Well played msm, well played.

How many times will we hear "the Russians" uttered during the debates?

I support GJ's effort to bring a voice to 3rd parties and making the LP a viable option in future elections. I think it goes without saying he has impaled himself on too many swords at this point for any serious libertarian to believe he is someone worth voting for with regard to libertarian principles. I won't begrudge anyone that votes for him though and fully understand the rationale behind that course of action.

There are a few things I am unclear on, maybe you can educate me (not trolling) on some of them. 168 out of 246. I take it the word "some" would be a qualifying way to describe those proportions. Maybe there is disagreement there. I don't see full blown 90%+ support, the standard rate of approval these presidential candidates typically get from their respective parties heading into the election time. Sure more people are going to come to the side of support by the time we reach November, but when you compare this to a standard GOP bearer such as Romney or McCain, you are seeing less overall support. Personally, and I can't speak for others that responded to you, I don't disagree with you that things will remain the way they always have, Republicans will attempt to pile on one another in order to maintain as much power and control of the political system, and this country, as possible. I'm not sure who you are trying to prove this point to. Again, I am in agreement with you and anyone else on that point. However, to ignore entirely the level of opposition Trump has had, in comparison to other recent GOP candidates, Romney, Mccain, Bush, is really a stretch. The chairman of the RNC is decreeing things he has never decreed before when threatening more Republicans to get in line. The media has been all over Trump since day 1, both liberal and conservative news, including FoxNews, the usual rubber stamp approving machine for Republican candidates. The lengths people are going to in order to discredit him by calling him racist, misogynistic, or sexist, are at all time highs, whether you agree or not with those sentiments. In the newest batch of leaked e-mails regarding Colin Powell, Powell himself confirmed the e-mails were real, and they stated that most of the corporatist, political and media elites of the latest Bohemian Grove are voting for everyone except Trump, including 3rd party options. I guess you can go ahead and discredit all of those things to make things more simple and look at the larger picture here, but I find some of these things telling and that Trump is not getting the typical welcoming from the establishment that GOP candidates are typically afforded. If you just want to go with the argument of "it doesn't matter, things will remain the same, everything you are seeing, everything you are hearing is smoke and mirrors at the end of they day", then we are in agreement. If you just want to say who cares, ignore all of the details, ignore the day to day happenings, don't bother pointing out the differences between Trump and previous GOP presidential candidates, then that is your prerogative, and I can't agree personally with taking that approach.

If this is the case, why is Reince Priebus threatening/demanding that all Republicans get in line with Trump, or else they will never be allowed to run as GOP members again? Why have the Bushes, Romney, McCain, and the other neocons all come out openly in opposition of this guy stating multiple times they would either a) not vote for him or b) vote 3rd party if necessary? Some of these folks will fall in line and be obedient to their political party in the end, there is no doubt about that, but the overwhelming sense is that these politicians have been openly attacking and criticizing their parties nominee since day 1 and continue to do it at present time and they do not like how he damages their ability to continue business as usual and to continue the establishment paradigm of endless war, endless federal reserve notes, and endless corruption at the highest levels in government. He would likely continue all of these things, but there is a perception that there is a chance he won't, and that is what ruffles the feathers of the status quo.

Jill Stein is a doctor that practiced for more than 25 years, much like the good doctor this site bases its name on. Understandably, her politics are most likely hated around here for the most part, of course, but I would argue she has a better moral foundation than your average politician by a long shot. Unfortunately her big heart blinds her on important issues economically related, similar to Ralph Nader, but you know these people truly do want to end the establishment and the corruption our government faces. I don't think she is wrong with what she stated here, and I don't have to endorse her politics to believe so. Donald Trump does seem to be on the dumber side of things, but he has more hatred from the establishment than any candidate I have ever seen, including Ron Paul, which would indeed make the opposition should he become president something we haven't seen before in modern times. Clinton is composed, has the entire establishment on her side, and is calculated in what she wants to do in further destroying this country and potentially the world. I do agree, that this makes her a larger threat than Trump, but at the end of the day, all of these politicians are grave threats and none are going to have every answer for all of our problems as much as they repeatedly promise to solve them.

Agreed for the most part. I think both had an outreach strategy, which unfortunately did not work in either case. Maybe it will work better in the future, who knows.

If you mean in name only, then as of 2016, you are correct. If you mean in principles, I would check out some of the videos of him giving speeches before he ran for Senator, when he was helping his father campaign in 2007/2008. He seemed a lot more libertarian than he does now as a senator.

Gary Johnson employed the Rand Paul strategy. Cozy up as much as possible to the Repubs and the Dems seeking out their vote, while doing your best to not piss off your base too much. Both failed as their respective bases saw what they were doing, emoted disappointment, and the lack of energy and passion probably ended up hurting both of them to some degree. And the gains made from the cozying aspect was not enough to account for the loss of the base of support. Whether these strategies were intentional or just who these men are, I don't know for sure. I'm guessing Rand's strategy was more intentional, based on his behavior/interviews before he became a Senator, whereas GJ is exactly who we are seeing when he speaks. If you feel one of these things make either of these people a better man, more power to you. It's obvious this is a response to watching Ron Paul run twice and lose twice as a genuinely principled man and knowing something different needed to be tried. Well, now that all of these failed strategies are out of the way.. what's next? Genuineness 2020? It could potentially be a great thing to have Rand run on the LP ticket in 2020, seeing as the LP made more headlines and got arguably much more coverage this time around, elevating the LP in general.

Now that he out of the first debate, the coast is clear, they can pretend to be giving an increase in air time. They will have to resume ignoring him as we get closer to the 2nd debate though.

What a shocker.

It was very symbolic when the camera panned over all of the various federal government agencies as he called them all failures at doing their job. All of them looking sad, confused, and completely incompetent. I am sure this is coming from from partisan fueled motivation from Congressman Chaffetz, but at least he is making some of these agencies look dimwitted and useless.

It will be entertaining and not shocking at all when 100% of the media outlets do not apologize or even acknowledge the fact that those pointing out health concerns for the past few weeks were right. These people were labeled conspiracy theorists, misogynists, or just Hillary haters by the media and Clinton, but that will quickly be forgotten, and the msm will continue to get away with doing 0.0% journalism as the country quickly forgets all about this as people tune into 9/11 memoriam marathons and football.

I hope that the momentum from GJ with the Libertarian Party and even Jill Stein with the Green Party continues making 3rd party candidates legitimate. We've now seen the true colors of both major parties at their respective national conventions go to great lengths to erase and ignore any non-establishment serious attempts at winning the nomination now in both 2012 and 2016. Maybe I am getting my hopes up, but I'm really hoping that translates into some serious efforts by voters to start voting for 3rd party candidates well above the 15% mark in 2020 and beyond.

What's interesting to note, is GJ says for the first time I can remember, states that the goal is to get into the debates, whether it is the 2nd or beyond. This is slightly changing his tune that there is pressure to get into the first debate and reach that 15% mark in time to qualify. I think him and his campaign see that they are lagging too far behind with too little time left and are now pivoting to reach any of the debates, rather than putting emphasis on the first debate. It's a shame and sad to see that they came so close, better than I think anyone would have figured before this campaign season began, and to be just 5ish points short kind of hurts. Unfortunately there are still too many "lesser evil" voters still out there and incessantly shaking them with facts about how the duopoly exists and prevents any real change from happening is not a message that has gotten through to a difference making extent.

Or "unbiased" and "impartial" moderators that just happen to point out that their preferred candidate is right every time a disputed topic arises.

You almost have to wonder if the incessant hiding of truth, the lying in interview after interview, the help in rigging the Democratic party system election, the corroboration with other political elites to buy the election for herself and her friends (elites), has on some level began to take its toll. She has 1000 lies stacked up on top of each other and has to go out there everyday with a fake smile, pretending that everything all OK, and that is she is spewing a long chain of lies in order to appear to be a real candidate for the presidency. It wouldn't at all be shocking if there has been psychological trauma as a result and we are beginning to see the real consequences of this. She thought she could handle this, take on the burden, continue saying her lines, but it's possible she can't. It started with those seizure like episodes last month and continues into this. Who knows what is next.

Sad to see so much integrity and principle lost in such a short time. Great to see fear is still such a strong motivating factor in many.

Used to listen to his radio show when driving to work and college classes. Guy is not your average radio show pundit. Seems to actually be intelligent and knows his stuff. Didn't often go for shock value or sensationalism, just talked political philosophy. Was pleasantly surprised when he interviewed Ron Paul during the 2008 campaign. Seemed like he really was digging the RP philosophy. How this will translate into holding public office is unknown, but I would take him over 99% of the rest of the big government stiffs on both sides.

GJ has less than a month to gain 3-8% poll points to get into the debates. Short of making some kind of crazy big announcement or suddenly getting a huge amount of media coverage, I don't see how this can happen in such a short time. He's been stuck at ~10% since May and hasn't budged. It's a shame, because we finally had a legitimate shot this election at getting a third party into the debates with two super hated and infamous candidates.