iwpoe wrote:

Greg wrote:

iwpoe wrote:

You're thinking too much in terms of their platforms, which is both the philosophical habbit and the surface message of most politicians, so I don't blame you. But this is not why people vote for a candidate like Trump, and indeed it's only losely why most people vote for any candidate at all. Trump is a demagogue of a high order, which I have not seen make it this far in politics in my lifetime.

I don't mean to think of it in terms of platforms; I just mean that Hillary seems to me pretty good at shrugging off charges of intellectual dishonesty. Trump lies mendaciously, swapping his positions left and right; Hillary lies like a lawyer. But they are both very good at making it work for them.

She going to shrug off 'Where'd you hide all of Bill's dresses?' or something equally personal?

I suspect she will just say, "That's below answering," or cast herself as a victim. In a one-on-one debate (with moderators almost always on her side), it will be pretty easy for someone like Clinton to make Trump look like a cruel bastard who isn't focusing on the issues because he can't. She is pretty quick on her feet.

(Actually, for that matter, it's likely he'll float whatever charges beforehand over Twitter, causing his usual media firestorm, so she'll have time to prepare a dignified response. Then a moderator will, inevitably, ask her what she thinks of it, and she will have seen it coming from a mile off.)

Greg wrote:

iwpoe wrote:

Greg wrote:

I don't mean to think of it in terms of platforms; I just mean that Hillary seems to me pretty good at shrugging off charges of intellectual dishonesty. Trump lies mendaciously, swapping his positions left and right; Hillary lies like a lawyer. But they are both very good at making it work for them.

She going to shrug off 'Where'd you hide all of Bill's dresses?' or something equally personal?

I suspect she will just say, "That's below answering," or cast herself as a victim. In a one-on-one debate (with moderators almost always on her side), it will be pretty easy for someone like Clinton to make Trump look like a cruel bastard who isn't focusing on the issues because he can't. She is pretty quick on her feet.

(Actually, for that matter, it's likely he'll float whatever charges beforehand over Twitter, causing his usual media firestorm, so she'll have time to prepare a dignified response. Then a moderator will, inevitably, ask her what she thinks of it, and she will have seen it coming from a mile off.)

He *is* a cruel bastard. That's half his appeal. Victims get help, but leadership? Being victims helped not one of his Republican opponents.

What's she going to fall back on? Feminine vulnerability? After she's avoided that for 18 years?

And "the issues"? You mean the song and dance that tumbles incoherently out of candidates' mouths every 4 years? Trump cares about the issues as much as she does, he just doesn't pretend otherwise.

Last edited by iwpoe (5/04/2016 3:46 pm)

iwpoe wrote:

Greg wrote:

iwpoe wrote:

She going to shrug off 'Where'd you hide all of Bill's dresses?' or something equally personal?

I suspect she will just say, "That's below answering," or cast herself as a victim. In a one-on-one debate (with moderators almost always on her side), it will be pretty easy for someone like Clinton to make Trump look like a cruel bastard who isn't focusing on the issues because he can't. She is pretty quick on her feet.

(Actually, for that matter, it's likely he'll float whatever charges beforehand over Twitter, causing his usual media firestorm, so she'll have time to prepare a dignified response. Then a moderator will, inevitably, ask her what she thinks of it, and she will have seen it coming from a mile off.)

He *is* a cruel bastard. That's half his appeal. Victims get help, but leadership? Being victims helped not one of his Republican opponents.

What's she going to fall back on? Feminine vulnerability? After she's avoided that for 18 years?

And "the issues"? You mean the song and dance that tumbles incoherently out of candidates' mouths every 4 years? Trump cares about the issues as much as she does, he just doesn't pretend otherwise.

It just seems hugely unlikely to me that Hillary Clinton is going to be caught off guard by such a predictable attack (which Trump has tried already, honestly). People just don't care that much about Hillary's hypocrisy on sexual assault, unless they're fringe SJWs. And it's easy enough for the bumbling and meek Jeb to crumble under Trump's force, but Clinton won't crumble like that. She won't get caught up in petty squabbles like Rubio on the one hand because she has a bit more control and on the other because the moderators will help her out.

I guess we'll see if Trump can pull off a Clinton character assassination. I just don't see any reason why it should work on a politician like her with a wider electorate.

Looks like Kasich has pulled out as well, so before Chris Kirk Speaks speaks, it looks like Kasich's not going to save us from the Trump Tyranny.

Unfortunately, I still would prefer such a state to a Clinton Cleptocracy; let's pray that by a miracle the wolves decide to devour Clinton over the e-mail scandal, leaving open the possibility that a third party run might be viable.

iwpoe wrote:

I don't think anyone that matters is going to be lost to emails any more than they were to Benghazi. It would have to come out that she was committing treason or illegal bribery or some kind of gross cover-up.

Honestly, since they didn't throw Bill out over the old lying under oath thing, I doubt as well that they are going to do so on this sort of "triviality" either.

Not that it would be consistent with fairness and the rule of law; Petraeus was sentenced to two years probation over mishandling classified information, and despite what Clinton has claimed, it seems pretty clear now that some of the e-mails were in fact marked as classified. At the very least, for her to claim that she wasn't knowingly playing fast-and-loose with her emails and at least potentially classified information betrays a belief in the rank credulity of the American populace that they would buy that Clinton is operating at a worse than W Bush aww-gee shucks level.

And former head of the CIA General Petraeus himself wasn't exactly small-fries; at one point, he was considered a likely strong contender for the 2016 DNC presidential nomination.

Still, Clinton is a useful weasel, and Petraeus had the old affair thing also working against him; if she looses the general though, I'm not sure if the vultures might not "find new evidence" and make their attack.

Last edited by Timotheos (5/04/2016 10:57 pm)