The 2016 US Presidential Election

[pandarilla]

People see her as untrustworthy and a pathological liar. She's also completely in the pocket of Wall St and to many is the epitome of a corrupt politician. Add in her warmongering foreign policy tendencies and she's really not an attractive proposition.  If Trump was anyone else she'd be nowhere and vice versa. They're both as bad as each other for different reasons, hence the polls and similarly unfavourable personal ratings. 

I wouldn't go as far as that.

Typically corrupt politician, and definitely beholden to big money. But 'as bad as trump' is too far.

[Zetterlund]

1 minute ago, pandarilla said:

 

I wouldn't go as far as that.

Typically corrupt politician, and definitely beholden to big money. But 'as bad as trump' is too far.

 

Being optimistic you could argue that at worst Clinton would be more of the same. Looks like a lot of people want a change and don't really care what form it takes, as is happening in much of the western world politically at the moment.

[EdgarusQPFC]

18 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

This is straw-clutching of the worst kind.

An email non-story and exaggerated health scares.

It's fucking shocking if that is all they have on her.
 

Non story? Deleting email evidence when told to preserve it for the sole purpose of evading accusation of wrong doing. Aye, very much a non story

13 minutes ago, jmothecat said:

 

That, and that she's a woman. Which as far as I can tell is the undertone of half the attacks.

 

 The classic response of any Clinton supporter

[Paco]

I find it surprising the amount of people who try to pretend the emails are a non-story. I'm not sure if it's fatigue, or because the facts have been distorted so much from both sides, or because Trump (probably all three) but it's clearly a massive issue.

I'm relatively certain my work would fire me if I installed my own server to route emails through, hid it, and then deleted huge swathes of them once shit hit the fan. She did it as the actual US Secretary of State! Absolutely anything could have been (and was) on those servers. Even if she was only organising staff nights out on it, it's quite simply illegal.

That she's been caught lying several times about it and has now resorted to the 'I don't recall' argument speaks volumes. She even tried to throw the State Department workers under the bus for her own decision.

The whole situation shows she's either monumentally stupid (she's clearly highly intelligent) or she's willing to do anything to avoid transparency.

[Zetterlund]

Agree about the emails - not sure how it can be a non-story when a presidential candidate is under investigation by the FBI. Would be bizarre if the opposing campaign weren't all over it.

[welshbairn]

Every Secretary of State did the same or similar thing before her. The State Department were a bit slow in catching up with the age of emails, and the rules about using private email accounts were only changed after she left office.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-personal-email-use-came-before-recent-rule-changes-1425415233

[harry94]

I find it funny how a few years ago, all the conspiracy theories were about Hillary faking illness to skip the Benghazi hearings.

The same people now conclude that she is so ill that she will be dying imminently.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Every Secretary of State did the same or similar thing before her. The State Department were a bit slow in catching up with the age of emails, and the rules about using private email accounts were only changed after she left office.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-personal-email-use-came-before-recent-rule-changes-1425415233

I was going to make the same point but you beat me to it.

It's why the email stuff is not relevant.

What beats me is if they want to go after her there are much more obvious targets - the problem though is if they go down that route it may open up a can of worms for Trump himself.

[Ad Lib]

6 hours ago, John Lambies Doos said:

I see ad lib is being a fanny again. Asked him reasonable question on another thread... got wide; and being a twat on this.

You asked what a Grammar school was. Several pages into a thread literally titled Grammar Schools.

[Ad Lib]

6 hours ago, Bishop Briggs said:

And who elected her to those "offices"? What were her exact responsibilities? The fact is that they are not offices at all. 

The Clintons are a typical example of the corrupt political classes who sell "access" in office line their pockets after leaving office.

I didn't say the offices were elected.

My point was about political experience. That includes but is not confined to elected office and the specific responsibilities that come with it. Anyone who paid even the most perfunctory of attention to American Politics would understand that the role of a First Lady is extremely political. Clinton's spell especially was almost as influential if not more so than the offices and activities of many Vice Presidents.

I literally don't care if people not in office encourage people with money to part with it.

[Ad Lib]

5 hours ago, Zetterlund said:

People see her as untrustworthy and a pathological liar. She's also completely in the pocket of Wall St and to many is the epitome of a corrupt politician. Add in her warmongering foreign policy tendencies and she's really not an attractive proposition.  If Trump was anyone else she'd be nowhere and vice versa. They're both as bad as each other for different reasons, hence the polls and similarly unfavourable personal ratings. 

If you can't pathologically lie you don't belong in politics. Lying is an essential skill to get shit done.

I don't see how she is "in the pocket of Wall Street". So far as I can see she's managed to scam Goldman Sachs for hundreds of thousands of pounds to give some stump speeches on their time. I'd rather have a President who scams bankers than one who scams ordinary folk with a non-University.

[Savage Henry]

This is straw-clutching of the worst kind.

An email non-story and exaggerated health scares.

It's fucking shocking if that is all they have on her.

It is all they have because Trump is incapable of taking her to task on policy matters. So you get emails and wild insane speculation about her health. I'm already seeing body double speculation as well, mainly from the "truthers" movement. That's it. That's all Trump's campaign can come up with.

[banana]

Going back to the point of voting for a dead Clinton over a living Trump, it would seemingly take a dead Clinton before some people entertain the outrageous possibility that she does actually have ongoing health issues. Staggering stuff.

[Newbornbairn]

She's not dead, she's pining for the fjords.

[pandarilla]

I didn't say the offices were elected.

My point was about political experience. That includes but is not confined to elected office and the specific responsibilities that come with it. Anyone who paid even the most perfunctory of attention to American Politics would understand that the role of a First Lady is extremely political. Clinton's spell especially was almost as influential if not more so than the offices and activities of many Vice Presidents.

I literally don't care if people not in office encourage people with money to part with it.

I fully agree with you up until the money point (or money shot so to speak).

Are you not in any way concerned about the impact money has on politics? I understand that in many ways it always has but like a lot of things in the last 30 years it has reached levels that are so corrupt - it threatens our whole democratic system.

[Paco]

Every Secretary of State did the same or similar thing before her. The State Department were a bit slow in catching up with the age of emails, and the rules about using private email accounts were only changed after she left office.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-personal-email-use-came-before-recent-rule-changes-1425415233

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/31/hillary-clinton/fact-checking-hillary-clintons-claim-her-email-pra/

I can't read the WSJ article so not 100% sure of its content but I've read similar before. It isn't true.

I don't think anyone would argue her right to a personal email account, but Clinton used it exclusively. That's clearly not allowed.

It would appear Colin Powell also used something similar, going by alleged comments. He of course denies it. Does that make it OK?

[LongTimeLurker]

9 hours ago, Zetterlund said:

Agree about the emails - not sure how it can be a non-story when a presidential candidate is under investigation by the FBI. Would be bizarre if the opposing campaign weren't all over it.

If her opponents had not been Sanders and then Trump, it would have gained a lot more traction and would almost certainly have derailed her campaign given her defence appears to have been to claim a stunning level of incompetence for somebody that wants to be handed the nuclear codes. The alternatives had to be very unappealing to her core base for them to stay on board with her. The main third party candidate seems to have blown it with his "what's Aleppo?" gaffe, so any chance she had of an easy low key campaign against a badly split Republican party followed by a landslide of Barry Goldwater proportions seems to have gone. A lot will depend on the debates and I doubt Trump will go easy on things like the email angle when he gets the chance to grill her about it.

[Newbornbairn]

6 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

If you can't pathologically lie you don't belong in politics. Lying is an essential skill to get shit done.

And that was a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Lib Dems, the lying b*****d party.

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, Paco said:

I don't think anyone would argue her right to a personal email account, but Clinton used it exclusively. That's clearly not allowed.

 

 

She used the official system for classified material. Which arguably could be seen as less safe than her private server given that the State Department has been leaking like a sieve.

[strichener]

10 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

She used the official system for classified material. Which arguably could be seen as less safe than her private server given that the State Department has been leaking like a sieve.

I am not really sure that using the defence of "I have to keep everything away from my department as I cannot get it to operate correctly" is the best angle to take for someone that is wanting to run the country.