US Presidential Election 2020

briany

sid waddell wrote: »

I have no doubt there will be many books written on the money being corruptly siphoned off by Trump and his cronies during the last five years.

I have long believed there would be a disruptor third candidate planted by Trump with the intention of splitting the Democratic vote.

West is a very famous black rapper, is pro-Trump, has a monstrous ego, is willing to say anything and do anything for publicity and money, and is corporate to his fingertips while having the ability to play the fake "outsider".

We'll have to see if he actually follows through with it, but he fits the pattern of a cynical disruptor perfectly.

His disruptive potential could be tempered by the fact that everyone knows he's good friends with Trump. A candidate such as Kanye might garner support from people who probably weren't going to vote to begin with, but I don't know how many he'd get to say, "I was going to vote for Biden, even if just to stop Trump being re-elected, but now I'm going to vote for Kanye, even though I think it'll probably help Trump get re-elected."

MadYaker

Kanye is drawing attention to himself because he's about to squat down and squeeze out another turd of an album (and i say that as a "fan" in the past) hard to know what effect it would have. But in reality he won't actually run.

Rjd2

Kanye has been vocally MAGA while his wife has worked with Trump. His supporters like many hugely poppy type rappers are white, he has missed the registration dates for many states also.

He will hurt neither of the front runners whatsoever.

TomOnBoard

Rjd2 wrote: »

Kanye has been vocally MAGA while his wife has worked with Trump. His supporters like many hugely poppy type rappers are white, he has missed the registration dates for many states also.

He will hurt neither of the front runners whatsoever.

If he is a disruptor candidate, he only needs to take votes away from Biden in marginal states. Many such are still open to him being put on the ballot.

rossie1977

Its a PR stunt. He has as much chance of running as Hulk Hogan did in 98 https://www.mandatory.com/culture/1170577-hulk-hogan-announced-candidacy-president-18-years-ago-today/amp

StringerBell

TomOnBoard wrote: »

If he is a disruptor candidate, he only needs to take votes away from Biden in marginal states. Many such are still open to him being put on the ballot.

Why do you think he would take any votes from Biden?

I would also be pretty confident this is a PR stunt from Kanye, because you see Kanye is an artist's and I'm just he or his wife are looking to flog some of their latest offerings.

I will always love that rapper and producer Kanye West, the guy who made the college drop out and 808 & heartbreak and a few of the other albums so it is genuinely sad to me to see what he has become these days.

I think he has been diagnosed bi polar? I mean Jesus whatever problems you had before getting mixed up with that parasitic family they are only going to be magnified

sid waddell

StringerBell wrote: »

Why do you think he would take any votes from Biden?

I would also be pretty confident this is a PR stunt from Kanye, because you see Kanye is an artist's and I'm just he or his wife are looking to flog some of their latest offerings.

I will always love that rapper and producer Kanye West, the guy who made the college drop out and 808 & heartbreak and a few of the other albums so it is genuinely sad to me to see what he has become these days.

I think he has been diagnosed bi polar? I mean Jesus whatever problems you had before getting mixed up with that parasitic family they are only going to be magnified

Here's four reasons;

i) Name recognition
ii) entertainment factor
iii) playing the fake "outsider"
iv) he's black so would peel off some black votes

If he runs it will be to try and tip the balance in favour of Trump in the swing states. No other reason, well, to feed his monstrous ego and his bank balance as well, I suppose.

It could be a publicity stunt but I would not write it off until we know more. Things are bat**** crazy in the US and you can't rule anything out.

TomOnBoard

StringerBell wrote: »

Why do you think he would take any votes from Biden?

I would also be pretty confident this is a PR stunt from Kanye, because you see Kanye is an artist's and I'm just he or his wife are looking to flog some of their latest offerings.

I will always love that rapper and producer Kanye West, the guy who made the college drop out and 808 & heartbreak and a few of the other albums so it is genuinely sad to me to see what he has become these days.

I think he has been diagnosed bi polar? I mean Jesus whatever problems you had before getting mixed up with that parasitic family they are only going to be magnified

Again, I'm saying IF he ran solely as a disruptor:

His popularity (albeit from an entertainment perspective) lies mostly with Millenials. This group had a greater affinity for Bernie rather than Joe, and wouldn't be big Trump supporters. So, if Kanye captures some votes originally destined for Bernie, along with a slice of African American votes that would otherwise have voted Joe, those get taken out of possible Joe votes. In a marginal state, a relatively small number of votes can separate number 1 from number 2. For example in 2016, Trump beat Clinton by just over 110,000 votes. Gary Johnson's vote in FL was twice that difference at 207,000 votes. Even Jill Stein took 65,000 while write in votes amounted to 25,000. That's the power of disruptors.... Not that they have a chance of winning themselves... Just that they can **** it up for someone else...

Remember, we're only talking about un-committed middle ground voters here... No hardened loyalty to either camp...also Protest voters.. Think Ming Flanagan back in the day... and, Ming actually won elections....

StringerBell

Okay, other than him being black so I guess will peel away some of the black voters in areas of the country even though the vast majority of the black voters who will not be voting for Trump will not be swayed by one of his boot lickers you might accept? I can't accept the rest though.He has been a Trump supporter, a very vocal one. He is all about the MAGA, if anything surely he peels voters off the Trump side as the latest novelty act with name recognition and celebrity?

I disagree with the idea that a third candidate will automatically be a problem for Biden but not for Trump.

It has been crystallised at this stage, it is a binary choice. It's gonna be Trump or its gonna be Biden. The undecideds are not actually as big as they were last time round, most of them are breaking for Biden, Kanye West is not going to be the reason they decide to vote for the third candidate for the ****s n giggles.

I understand people tend to get overly hyped up on all things Trump related and I understand completely the gravity of the moment we are living through but I'd be alot more concerned with the lengths Trump will go to tip the scales in his favour than I would be Kanye West

Maybe I'm wrong and I can damn well state as a fact that if Oprah or Jay Z or Colin Kaepernick even was gonna run if be a lot more convinced they would do Biden a lot of damage by taking some of the black vote for sure, and obviously some of the ****s n giggles votes cause it's a celebrity.

Edit: and to Tom's post which I've just seen. Being honest if that were true that his voting share would be made up of voters who would have been closer to Bernie than Biden, or Trump (which I disagree with but for arguement sake let's stipulate) and they decide that rather than vote for the guy who could become president that isn't named Donald Trump they are gonna vote for Kanye fricken West then it's all over anyway, knowing what has happened in the last 4 years and knowing how much worse it is going to get then what could be done to save the country from itself in reality?

sid waddell

West wouldn't peel away any* Trump voters.

Trump voters are either out or all in at this stage.

The game is voter suppression, including using Covid as a weapon, vote splitting, and if necessary, vote falsification, and if all that fails, legal chicanery and/or violence to deny democracy and keep Trump in power.

*When I say any, I mean the amount of Trump voters he would take would be infinitesmal.

Rjd2

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Again, I'm saying IF he ran solely as a disruptor:

His popularity (albeit from an entertainment perspective) lies mostly with Millenials. This group had a greater affinity for Bernie rather than Joe, and wouldn't be big Trump supporters. So, if Kanye captures some votes originally destined for Bernie, along with a slice of African American votes that would otherwise have voted Joe, those get taken out of possible Joe votes. In a marginal state, a relatively small number of votes can separate number 1 from number 2. For example in 2016, Trump beat Clinton by just over 110,000 votes. Gary Johnson's vote in FL was twice that difference at 207,000 votes. Even Jill Stein took 65,000 while write in votes amounted to 25,000. That's the power of disruptors.... Not that they have a chance of winning themselves... Just that they can **** it up for someone else...

Remember, we're only talking about un-committed middle ground voters here... No hardened loyalty to either camp...also Protest voters.. Think Ming Flanagan back in the day... and, Ming actually won elections....

Kanye is on record for been a MAGA dude while his wife has worked with Trump. The Kardashian family and what it symbolises is rightfully loathed by those who support Bernie.

Maybe at his artistic peak and when he dropped his Katrina rant aimed at Bush that Kanye could have been alluring to the Bernie base but not 2020 Kanye.

If someone like Killer Mike decided to run who is a thoughtful intelligent lefty rapper,,,, then yeah that would be a disaster for Biden, but not this version of West who probably won't be on that many ballot boxes in the first place.

eagle eye

I think this is the first election where the right third candidate has a real chance of winning.

StringerBell

sid waddell wrote: »

West wouldn't peel away any* Trump voters.

Trump voters are either out or all in at this stage.

The game is voter suppression, including using Covid as a weapon, vote splitting, and if necessary, vote falsification, and if all that fails, legal chicanery and/or violence to deny democracy and keep Trump in power.

*When I say any, I mean the amount of Trump voters he would take would be infinitesmal.

I agree actually, and I would feel the same about how many Biden supporters he would turn or people who were going to vote Biden for the sole purpose of removing Trump. I don't see Kanye being a substantive candidate to affect the outcome one way or the other.

Igotadose

eagle eye wrote: »

I think this is the first election where the right third candidate has a real chance of winning.

Wishful thinking at this late date.

If one had started out at the beginning and kept going till now, maybe. But even those that have in the past, like John Anderson and Ross Perot didn't garner many votes. Perot did well for awhile till he got on the debate stage and started rambling about black helicopters at his daughter's wedding or whatever it was, and that was it for him.

sid waddell

eagle eye wrote: »

I think this is the first election where the right third candidate has a real chance of winning.

You might as well have written "I think Leitrim have a real chance of winning the All-Ireland senior football championship this year."

sid waddell

Rjd2 wrote: »

Kanye is on record for been a MAGA dude while his wife has worked with Trump. The Kardashian family and what it symbolises is rightfully loathed by those who support Bernie.

Maybe at his artistic peak and when he dropped his Katrina rant aimed at Bush that Kanye could have been alluring to the Bernie base but not 2020 Kanye.

If someone like Killer Mike decided to run who is a thoughtful intelligent lefty rapper,,,, then yeah that would be a disaster for Biden, but not this version of West who probably won't be on that many ballot boxes in the first place.

Yeah but anybody thoughtful and intelligent like that is not going to run as a third candidate because they know full well that doing so would hand the election to Trump.

Anybody thoughtful and intelligent knows it's Biden or bust. A flawed candidate for sure, but that's who the candidate is, there's no other choice but Biden. That's the system, that's the way it is.

KiKi III

eagle eye wrote: »

I think this is the first election where the right third candidate has a real chance of winning.

Not a hope.

Even if they were a billionaire, without the structure of either party it would be impossible to win.

People underestimate what it takes to get elected president in the US: Tens of millions of dollars, a shrewd campaign team and thousands of volunteers are just the start of it.

duploelabs

sid waddell wrote: »

You might as well have written "I think Leitrim have a real chance of winning the All-Ireland senior football championship this year."

With more than three quarters of the season already played

Rjd2

KiKi III wrote: »

Not a hope.

Even if they were a billionaire, without the structure of either party it would be impossible to win.

People underestimate what it takes to get elected president in the US: Tens of millions of dollars, a shrewd campaign team and thousands of volunteers are just the start of it.

I think The Rock is the only celebrity I could see winning it some day and even then he would have to start work a few years before any campaign and he would need 2 horrible candidates from the 2 main parties.

Igotadose

Rjd2 wrote: »

I think The Rock is the only celebrity I could see winning it some day and even then he would have to start work a few years before any campaign and he would need 2 horrible candidates from the 2 main parties.

Zero chance for the Rock. If he came close, the amount of muck-slinging and rat-f**king from the other sides would be enormous. He's mixed-race, which doesn't play in a lot of the US still, and a career in Wrestling means he dealt with seedy individuals, even if he remained clean.

It'd be entertaining, though. He'd get my vote.

sid waddell

As regards celebrity candidates, I don't see Democrats ever choosing one, the sort of people who vote in Democratic primaries are more interested in policies than the average person and less interested in choosing a celebrity. Any celebrity candidate would have to have serious policies that really appealed to voters.

Republicans are much more easily seduced by bare celebrity, two of their last four presidents have been celebrities.

I could see Tucker Carlson running in 2024 as a slightly toned down demagogue type candidate and possibly getting the nomination too. Ivanka Trump also has to be in the reckoning.

briany

Igotadose wrote: »

Zero chance for the Rock. If he came close, the amount of muck-slinging and rat-f**king from the other sides would be enormous. He's mixed-race, which doesn't play in a lot of the US still, and a career in Wrestling means he dealt with seedy individuals, even if he remained clean.

It'd be entertaining, though. He'd get my vote.

As far as ex-wrestlers go, I'd still say that Jesse Ventura would have had a good chance if he'd run on a Dem ticket. I know he's running for a 3rd party this time around, but 3rd parties are such a non-entity over there that they're only mentioned as potentially spoiling the vote for the 2 main parties.

He has a good degree of political experience, is a good talker, has a liberal policy on marijuana use, is a Vietnam vet, can position himself as an outsider etc. I know he's into conspiracy theories, too, but those have gone mainstream in the U.S. and no longer a shocking belief to be held, even by a serious political candidate.

sid waddell

briany wrote: »

As far as ex-wrestlers go, I'd still say that Jesse Ventura would have had a good chance if he'd run on a Dem ticket. I know he's running for a 3rd party this time around, but 3rd parties are such a non-entity over there that they're only mentioned as potentially spoiling the vote for the 2 main parties.

He has a good degree of political experience, is a good talker, has a liberal policy on marijuana use, is a Vietnam vet, can position himself as an outsider etc. I know he's into conspiracy theories, too, but those have gone mainstream in the U.S. and no longer a shocking belief to be held, even by a serious political candidate.

Conspiracy theories are not mainstream within the Democratic party. No conspiracy theorist would stand a chance of gaining a Democratic presidential nomination.

briany

sid waddell wrote: »

Conspiracy theories are not mainstream within the Democratic party. No conspiracy theorist would stand a chance of gaining a Democratic presidential nomination.

The way the Democratic party is going these days it seems it wants nothing to do with anyone who's not a party lifer. But on the subject of Ventura's conspiracy predilections, his show mostly discussed conspiracies that have established themselves in popular culture like JFK, global warming, missile hitting the pentagon on 9/11, top secret weapons, gang stalking and Area 51. Maybe this would be shocking to the Democratic elite of Greenwich, Connecticut, but to the youth vote that Ventura would likely target, not so much. It would be a stick to beat Ventura with but no more than Bernie Sanders and his 'crazy' ideas about free college. Anything not staid, centrist politics seems anathema to that crowd.

duploelabs

briany wrote: »

The way the Democratic party is going these days it seems it wants nothing to do with anyone who's not a party lifer. But on the subject of Ventura's conspiracy predilections, his show mostly discussed conspiracies that have established themselves in popular culture like JFK, global warming, missile hitting the pentagon on 9/11, top secret weapons, gang stalking and Area 51. Maybe this would be shocking to the Democratic elite of Greenwich, Connecticut, but to the youth vote that Ventura would likely target, not so much. It would be a stick to beat Ventura with but no more than Bernie Sanders and his 'crazy' ideas about free college. Anything not staid, centrist politics seems anathema to that crowd.

This Jesse Ventura as a democratic pick?

https://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/12/politics/donald-trump-jesse-ventura-roger-stone-vice-president/index.html

(To Roger Stone about Donal Trump's VP pick)

"Roger, that throws me out of the equation because I'm a former governor. Do you think Donald will ever think of asking me?"

sid waddell

briany wrote: »

The way the Democratic party is going these days it seems it wants nothing to do with anyone who's not a party lifer. But on the subject of Ventura's conspiracy predilections, his show mostly discussed conspiracies that have established themselves in popular culture like JFK, global warming, missile hitting the pentagon on 9/11, top secret weapons, gang stalking and Area 51. Maybe this would be shocking to the Democratic elite of Greenwich, Connecticut, but to the youth vote that Ventura would likely target, not so much. It would be a stick to beat Ventura with but no more than Bernie Sanders and his 'crazy' ideas about free college. Anything not staid, centrist politics seems anathema to that crowd.

Conspiracy theories such as the above are not in the least "shocking", they're just idiotic. They might be big in the culture of young white stoners who like The Big Lebowski or listen to Joe Rogan, but young white stoners are not a reliable base on which to win a presidential election.

And it would be extremely idiotic for the Democrats to ever pick a presidential candidate who believed in such nonsense.

There are entirely different rules for Republicans and Democrats. A Republican can get away with public pushing of idiotic conspiracy theories. A Democrat can't.

The entirety of the Republican media, who at the moment are slavish in their devotion to a conspiracy theorist, would suddenly "discover" their critical faculties if a Democrat pushed such nonsense. And such a Democrat would also be savaged by the non-Republican media - and rightly so. They would lose in a landslide.

BonnieSituation

eagle eye wrote: »

I think this is the first election where the right third candidate has a real chance of winning.

Unlike 1992?

My God. There is NO possibility of a third candidate being close to winning in this election. How could you possibly think this?

Martin Heinrich could stand I guess.

Rjd2

sid waddell wrote: »

I could see Tucker Carlson running in 2024 as a slightly toned down demagogue type candidate and possibly getting the nomination too. Ivanka Trump also has to be in the reckoning.

Tucker from all accounts loathes the idea of been president, but is having the time of his life taunting the Neocon element of the party.

In 2024 whoever wants to be president will have to bend the knee to him because if not they are dead. That's why those who dream of Nikki Haley bringing it back to the "glory" days of Regan style obsession with small government, "free" markets and foreign imperialism are deluded.

It will be someone like Hawley who will probably win with the backing of Tucker which is why Biden needs to actually be a radical president. Been polite on twitter and not wanting to offend suburban Republicans will leave him vulnerable to someone like Hawley in 2024.

Ivanka is gorgeous, but bar that she has doesn't have her father's charisma or ability to connect/con the common man. She would bomb on a debate stage.

On The Rock,,,,,,,a million things would have to go right for him, but he has absolutely immense charisma and is popular with both sides. Right wing boomers and generation x type people love him for his WWE work and crappy fast and furious films so no attack would stick.

He did a few years praise David French of the national review (not a left wing site!) when he suggested he should run.:D

Can't think of any other celebrity that could cross both aisles ,,,someone like Labron James is to polarising, while someone like Killer Mike would be to left wing for both parties.

eagle eye

KiKi III wrote:

Even if they were a billionaire, without the structure of either party it would be impossible to win.
People underestimate what it takes to get elected president in the US: Tens of millions of dollars, a shrewd campaign team and thousands of volunteers are just the start of it.

And a household name in the US.

There are people who could go for it who would have what it takes.

I'm just saying that given the candidates, the worst options there's ever been imo, that a well known popular independent would have a more realistic chance than ever before.

pixelburp

A third party candidate, no matter how "credible", simply doesn't have a hope in hell within the electorial college. Ross Perot came closest in modern history with his 19%, yet it amounted to an aberration within the machine. There's not a shred of evidence as far as I can see that points towards an opening for a 3rd party candidate to exploit. One's personal distaste for the actual candidates can't surrplant reality. The exposure, resources and political clout required to gain traction would cripple most - before the question of "charisma" could even count for something.