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2024 Presidential Election Thread - Let's keep the party going.


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Posted
18 minutes ago, immamac said:

He's saying Joe didn't lose the debate, he lost Americas confidence in his ability to even basically function. 

That’s correct. It’s an image thing. Now go put fat old Trump up against Kamala on a debate stage. 

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Posted
7 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Speaking of Bible stuff..

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/christians-kamala-can-pull-evangelical-voters-away-donald-trump-rcna167561

How I’ve been convincing Christians they don’t have to vote Republican

Democrats need to embrace the idea that evangelicals, and especially white male evangelicals, are worth winning and can be won.

By Doug Pagitt, executive director of Vote Common Good

During the last month, Christians for Kamala joined the ranks of groups supporting Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. In so doing, they stand beside groups as wide-ranging as Comics for Kamala and Deadheads for Kamala. Because Harris has shown she will include us all in her vision for the United States and bring together what has been torn apart, all of these groups have seized upon the newfound enthusiasm among the electorate since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July and endorsed Harris.

A religious coalition such as this entering the chat is an important step in the right direction, and, if built upon, could help sway enough movable religious voters in critical battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. What’s more, it could mean breaking the stronghold that MAGA forces have on many of our country’s evangelical voters. Thanks in part to the cooperation of so many self-identified Christian voters, the MAGA movement has seized control of the Republican Party and helped lead our country down a dark, democracy-threatening path.

Central to our work at Vote Common Good, I spend a lot of my time traveling the country speaking to voters, particularly evangelical and Catholic voters who are hardwired into voting Republican, working to get them to break out of those patterns. What I’ve learned is that most don’t want or need their elected leader to be like them, but they really do want their leader to like them. It wasn’t clear that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton liked evangelical and Catholic men when she ran for president in 2016, and it remains largely unclear to many of these voters in 2024 if Kamala Harris does. Trump, on the other hand, probably doesn’t like them, but he put his arms around these voters in a transactional exchange, and he promised and in some cases delivered them power.

But on the trail in 2020, 2022 and this year, I’ve gleaned the reason many evangelical and Christian voters ultimately leave Trump: his obvious lack of kindness. A poll that my organization Vote Common Good commissioned in 2020 showed that in swing states, Trump’s lack of kindness was driving evangelical and Catholic voters away in large enough numbers to potentially affect the outcome of the election.

Voters typically realize that the way they vote reflects on them. And those religious voters who defected from Trump didn’t like the way his unkindness reflected on them, whether it be putting migrant children in cages, the way he treats women, the way he treats the press, the way he treats nearly everyone who left his administration and the way he treats democracy itself. Many of these voters know that’s not the behavior they want their children to emulate.

The Harris campaign clearly knows it has an opportunity here. The choice of Tim Walz as vice presidential nominee is in no small part evidence of that. But it isn’t nearly enough. Democrats more broadly need to embrace the idea that evangelicals, and especially white male evangelicals, are worth winning and can be won without the party compromising its values.

What it’s going to take is a concerted, grassroots effort to reach these voters, listen to them and bring them along on a journey to help them understand it’s OK for them to let concern for the common good, and not allegiance to a political party, determine how they vote. We need to tell them that what Democrats are pushing for lines up with the values evangelicals hold dear — making the world better and bringing people together. Those policies include commonsense gun reform to keep kids safe, engaging solutions at the border and lowering the cost of child care. Many Christians are heartbroken at the idea that they have to choose between a faith that’s meaningful to them and a political identity that has been wedded to it. They don’t know what to do, and we need to help them separate those two identities.

---

More at the link above.

Well that certainly looks like a lot of words.  I don't know any evangelicals, so I'll leave it to you guys.

Posted
33 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

IMG_5312.jpeg

I understand this line of thinking but it also looks like the Harris team is breaking the agreement and wanting to get out of the debate. It gives Trump an opening to bail. 

Posted
1 minute ago, The Dog said:

I understand this line of thinking but it also looks like the Harris team is breaking the agreement and wanting to get out of the debate. It gives Trump an opening to bail. 

No it doesn’t. The muted mics was what the Biden team wanted and demanded. The Harris team, which is not the Biden team any longer, wants them hot. 

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Posted
Just now, Js1 said:

No it doesn’t. The muted mics was what the Biden team wanted and demanded. The Harris team, which is not the Biden team any longer, wants them hot. 

You are correct in that point.

However, they've used the argument that the agreement was settled before in order to keep Trump from bailing and doing additional debates. Now they are trying to flip the script and make changes? 

The Harris campaign is trying to have it both ways.

Posted

I think there's a huge difference between settling on the date/time/network (2 debates, one in June on CNN and one in September on ABC) and the nit picky rules of each debate.  

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Posted

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/26/opinion/republican-donors-money-ttump.html

Republican Donors: Do You Know Where Your Money Goes?
 

Quote

We long ago blew past any meaningful controls on political giving in American elections. Now we should focus on the rules governing political spending, which are in equally terrible shape. For that we can blame the Trump campaign and the federal government’s feeble enforcement efforts.

Anyone who has spent time reviewing Donald Trump’s campaign spending reports would quickly conclude they’re a governance nightmare. There is so little disclosure about what happened to the billions raised in 2020 and 2024 that donors (and maybe even the former president himself) can’t possibly know how it was spent.

 

Quote

Federal Election Commission campaign disclosure reports from 2020 show that much of the money donated to the Trump campaign went into a legal and financial black hole reportedly controlled by Trump family members and close associates. This year’s campaign disclosures are shaping up to be the same. Donors big and small give their hard-earned dollars to candidates with the expectation they will be spent on direct efforts to win votes. They deserve better.

During the 2020 election, almost $516 million of the over $780 million spent by the Trump campaign was directed to American Made Media Consultants, a Delaware-based private company created in 2018 that masked the identities of who ultimately received donor dollars, according to a complaint filed with the F.E.C. by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. How A.M.M.C. spent the money was a mystery even to Mr. Trump’s campaign team, according to news reports shortly after the election.

 

Quote

All but 18 of the 150 largest expenditures on a Trump campaign’s 2020 F.E.C. report went to A.M.M.C. None of the expenses were itemized or otherwise explained aside from anodyne descriptions including “placed media,” “SMS advertising” and “online advertising.” F.E.C. rules require candidates to fully and accurately disclose the final recipients of their campaign disbursements, which is usually understood to include when payments are made through a vendor such as A.M.M.C. This disclosure is intended to assure donors their contributions are used for campaign expenses. Currently, neither voters nor law enforcement can know whether any laws were broken.

 

Spoiler

A.M.M.C.’s first president was reported to be Lara Trump, the wife of Mr. Trump’s son Eric. The New York Times reported that A.M.M.C. had a treasurer who was also the chief financial officer of Mr. Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign. Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, signed off on the plan to set up A.M.M.C., and one of Eric Trump’s deputies from the Trump Organization was involved in running it.

Ms. Trump is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee, which, soon after her arrival, announced it would link up with the Trump campaign for joint fund-raising. The joint entity prioritizes a PAC that pays Mr. Trump’s legal fees over the R.N.C., The Associated Press has reported, making assurances from Mr. Trump’s campaign co-manager that R.N.C. funds wouldn’t be used to pay Mr. Trump’s legal bills seem more hollow.

This election, the Trump campaign and four of its PACs have paid Red Curve Solutions, another private company, at least $18 million. The Campaign Legal Center says Red Curve appears to pay Mr. Trump’s legal bills and then gets reimbursed by the PACs. (The law is murky on what types of legal bills can be paid by campaigns, but some are allowed.) The head of Red Curve also serves as the treasurer for the Trump campaign as well as the affiliated PACs.

What percentage of donor contributions go to lawyers defending Mr. Trump? It’s impossible to know.

In June, NBC revealed the existence of a new mystery company, called Launchpad Strategies. Launchpad took in almost $15 million in Trump political cash via the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump National Committee. Little is known about this new group. It was created in 2023 and the Trump campaign says it is related to fund-raising. We don’t know who owns it, who runs it or where the $15 million went.

It seems likely Mr. Trump is keeping close tabs on donations flowing through campaign vehicles controlled by family members and loyalists. But from early March through July of this year, the Biden and now Harris campaign outspent the Trump campaign three to one on advertising. By late May, the Democratic campaign had opened 200 field offices and hired 1,000 staff members in key states. The Trump campaign didn’t open its first office in the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania until June. The Biden campaign had 24 there in April.

Biden’s campaign also spent donor cash on legal bills, though apparently in far smaller quantities. It paid over $1 million for attorneys during a special counsel probe of the president’s handling of classified documents, The Associated Press reported in April.

Maybe the Trump campaign is saving up for a post-Labor Day blitz to the finish line. Or perhaps Brad Parscale, whose strategy firm took in $94 million from Trump-affiliated groups in the 2016 campaign, spent every cent of that to re-elect the president. We know he seems to have paid himself handsomely. He bought a $2.4 million Fort Lauderdale waterfront property, a BMW X6, a Range Rover and a Ferrari. When Mr. Trump learned of Mr. Parscale’s high-rolling lifestyle, he reportedly exclaimed, “That’s my money!” according to Michael Bender’s book on the Trump campaign. Concerns about Mr. Parscale reportedly drove Mr. Kushner to ensure A.M.M.C. was fully controlled by the Trump family and trusted lieutenants.

Donors should demand more information about how their money is spent. But that would most likely offend the Trump family and confidants running the campaign. And the whole point of donating to Mr. Trump is to get on his good side.

And — just hypothetically, of course — if Vice President Kamala Harris opens up her lead in the polls and the odds fall that Mr. Trump could win, who would be surprised if the unknown owners of the mystery companies paid themselves more while the campaign spigots are blasting cash and the future uncertain?

The Federal Election Commission should demand that all campaigns disclose recipients of more than $200 in campaign cash. At least that’s what the law says. Campaign Legal Center tried to get the F.E.C. to enforce disclosure rules on the Trump campaign. The commissioners voted 3 to 3 to dismiss the matter, and federal courts have declined to step in. The legal center has appealed the case to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The commission, long famous in Washington for its dysfunction, now seems incapable of its most basic enforcement role. The agency reportedly had only three open investigations in June despite the proliferation of hundreds of new campaigns and PACs. Congress should demand it better police the recipients of campaign contributions. And if the law is inadequate, Congress should make new ones.

 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/26/opinion/republican-donors-money-ttump.html

Republican Donors: Do You Know Where Your Money Goes?
 

  Reveal hidden contents

A.M.M.C.’s first president was reported to be Lara Trump, the wife of Mr. Trump’s son Eric. The New York Times reported that A.M.M.C. had a treasurer who was also the chief financial officer of Mr. Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign. Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, signed off on the plan to set up A.M.M.C., and one of Eric Trump’s deputies from the Trump Organization was involved in running it.

Ms. Trump is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee, which, soon after her arrival, announced it would link up with the Trump campaign for joint fund-raising. The joint entity prioritizes a PAC that pays Mr. Trump’s legal fees over the R.N.C., The Associated Press has reported, making assurances from Mr. Trump’s campaign co-manager that R.N.C. funds wouldn’t be used to pay Mr. Trump’s legal bills seem more hollow.

This election, the Trump campaign and four of its PACs have paid Red Curve Solutions, another private company, at least $18 million. The Campaign Legal Center says Red Curve appears to pay Mr. Trump’s legal bills and then gets reimbursed by the PACs. (The law is murky on what types of legal bills can be paid by campaigns, but some are allowed.) The head of Red Curve also serves as the treasurer for the Trump campaign as well as the affiliated PACs.

What percentage of donor contributions go to lawyers defending Mr. Trump? It’s impossible to know.

In June, NBC revealed the existence of a new mystery company, called Launchpad Strategies. Launchpad took in almost $15 million in Trump political cash via the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump National Committee. Little is known about this new group. It was created in 2023 and the Trump campaign says it is related to fund-raising. We don’t know who owns it, who runs it or where the $15 million went.

It seems likely Mr. Trump is keeping close tabs on donations flowing through campaign vehicles controlled by family members and loyalists. But from early March through July of this year, the Biden and now Harris campaign outspent the Trump campaign three to one on advertising. By late May, the Democratic campaign had opened 200 field offices and hired 1,000 staff members in key states. The Trump campaign didn’t open its first office in the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania until June. The Biden campaign had 24 there in April.

Biden’s campaign also spent donor cash on legal bills, though apparently in far smaller quantities. It paid over $1 million for attorneys during a special counsel probe of the president’s handling of classified documents, The Associated Press reported in April.

Maybe the Trump campaign is saving up for a post-Labor Day blitz to the finish line. Or perhaps Brad Parscale, whose strategy firm took in $94 million from Trump-affiliated groups in the 2016 campaign, spent every cent of that to re-elect the president. We know he seems to have paid himself handsomely. He bought a $2.4 million Fort Lauderdale waterfront property, a BMW X6, a Range Rover and a Ferrari. When Mr. Trump learned of Mr. Parscale’s high-rolling lifestyle, he reportedly exclaimed, “That’s my money!” according to Michael Bender’s book on the Trump campaign. Concerns about Mr. Parscale reportedly drove Mr. Kushner to ensure A.M.M.C. was fully controlled by the Trump family and trusted lieutenants.

Donors should demand more information about how their money is spent. But that would most likely offend the Trump family and confidants running the campaign. And the whole point of donating to Mr. Trump is to get on his good side.

And — just hypothetically, of course — if Vice President Kamala Harris opens up her lead in the polls and the odds fall that Mr. Trump could win, who would be surprised if the unknown owners of the mystery companies paid themselves more while the campaign spigots are blasting cash and the future uncertain?

The Federal Election Commission should demand that all campaigns disclose recipients of more than $200 in campaign cash. At least that’s what the law says. Campaign Legal Center tried to get the F.E.C. to enforce disclosure rules on the Trump campaign. The commissioners voted 3 to 3 to dismiss the matter, and federal courts have declined to step in. The legal center has appealed the case to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The commission, long famous in Washington for its dysfunction, now seems incapable of its most basic enforcement role. The agency reportedly had only three open investigations in June despite the proliferation of hundreds of new campaigns and PACs. Congress should demand it better police the recipients of campaign contributions. And if the law is inadequate, Congress should make new ones.

 


91fxee.jpg

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Posted
47 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Well that certainly looks like a lot of words.  I don't know any evangelicals, so I'll leave it to you guys.

You lucky son of a bitch. Oh and lol at the idea of Evangelicals leaving Trump over anything at this point. They're full on the hate machine as much as any other MAGAite.

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Posted
20 minutes ago, The Dog said:

I understand this line of thinking but it also looks like the Harris team is breaking the agreement and wanting to get out of the debate. It gives Trump an opening to bail. 

No, it doesn't. It makes Trump either admit he needs a mute button, or feed into Trump bailing on the debate.  Or to get trump to further commit to the debate.  His team could easily we want to stick to the rules agree to earlier with Biden, and I'm sure Harris would accept that.  Harris is saying she wants to change the rules, something trump could agree to or not.  And if he doesn't, then it's obvious his handlers think he needs a mute button.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, tx ind said:

I just want there to be some actual fact checking on Trump.

Same But if the moderators won’t, KH can’t get bogged down in it. She just needs to retort that’s a lie (better if she’s keeping count and can say, well that was Donald’s 14th lie so far) and go into her response 

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Posted

tldr; 

In the last week and a half PPP has done over 30 polls both statewide and in various districts in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas.

That represents a pretty broad swath of the country and in the polls that included the Presidential race Kamala Harris is doing an average of one point better than Joe Biden did in the same places.

That’s great news for Democrats! If that held across the board she would win by a commanding 5 point margin in the popular vote and win the Electoral College 303-235 while just falling the slightest bit short in North Carolina.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Bullneck said:

I don't know, man.  Powerfunnlz sounds kinda cool.

image.thumb.png.ae324a3544dfa654e917e0ce70dfd6f4.png

image.png

“Powerful nuts”.  Obama’s convention speech jab at his mushroom has him rattled.

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Posted
47 minutes ago, The Dog said:

You are correct in that point.

However, they've used the argument that the agreement was settled before in order to keep Trump from bailing and doing additional debates. Now they are trying to flip the script and make changes? 

The Harris campaign is trying to have it both ways.

Good. Finally a Dem campaign that understands they’re in a street fight not a beauty pageant. 

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Posted
52 minutes ago, The Dog said:

The Harris campaign is trying to have it both ways.

I think their goal is to get Trump to cancel the debate.   He will look old and cowardly if he bails over a disagreement over terms, no matter what the earlier terms were.  

True, his myrmidons will believe whatever he says, but to independent ( and whatever undecided are remaining) voters he will look weak and old for ducking.

I think this is part of the playbook that they are successfully running to make him look small and non-threatening.

Posted
I think their goal is to get Trump to cancel the debate.   He will look old and cowardly if he bails over a disagreement over terms, no matter what the earlier terms were.  
True, his myrmidons will believe whatever he says, but to independent ( and whatever undecided are remaining) voters he will look weak and old for ducking.
I think this is part of the playbook that they are successfully running to make him look small and non-threatening.

Him cancelling the debate will certainly be a counter to the argument that Harris is a coward because she won’t do interviews.
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Posted
1 minute ago, Gatorubet said:

I think their goal is to get Trump to cancel the debate.  

If that were true, it seems like an odd goal.  Whether mics are hot or not, I'd think Harris wants any debate to further show the contrast between her and Trump, which could be a lot worse than that between Biden and Trump back in June.  The mic issue is just gravy.

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Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, Woland said:


Him cancelling the debate will certainly be a counter to the argument that Harris is a coward because she won’t do interviews.

Oh please, the media gives him a pass in everything. They’ll say she changed the terms and that’s why no debate.

Edited by 'stache
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Posted
2 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Oh please, the media gives him a pass in everything. They’ll say she changed the terms and that’s why no debate.

“Is Harris running a campaign of bad faith and dishonesty because Trump cancelled the debate? What happened to the politics of decency and respect for an opponent and how can voters trust the Democrats to be honest public servants after they ruined political campaigns?” - NYT

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Posted
1 minute ago, 'stache said:

Oh please, the media gives him a pass in everything. They’ll say she changed the terms and that’s why no debate.

there were never any terms for a Harris Trump debate. Any discussions were about a Biden Trump debate.

And I don’t think the media matters. “Trump cancels debate” will be the headline.     One thing about Trump is that he bloviates so much is there is most assuredly some clip of him talking about ‘anytime anywhere’ I’ll debate.   He can’t help himself.

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Posted
19 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

I think their goal is to get Trump to cancel the debate.   He will look old and cowardly if he bails over a disagreement over terms, no matter what the earlier terms were.  

True, his myrmidons will believe whatever he says, but to independent ( and whatever undecided are remaining) voters he will look weak and old for ducking.

I think this is part of the playbook that they are successfully running to make him look small and non-threatening.

Take it easy there thesaurus boy

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Posted
1 hour ago, The Dog said:

You are correct in that point.

However, they've used the argument that the agreement was settled before in order to keep Trump from bailing and doing additional debates. Now they are trying to flip the script and make changes? 

The Harris campaign is trying to have it both ways.

Not really. They are ridiculing him and playing up the “any time any place” boast he made. Wanting the other side muted is a clear sign of weakness. Make trump demand it and play that demand for all it’s worth

Posted
11 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Even if you feel really great about going to trial, it is not unusual for there to be some moment in the trial where your key witness testimony does not go as planned, and somebody makes a mistake and says something stupid or wrong on a crucial thing.

The reason you settle good cases too is that you want to eliminate the chance of a bad result. If you can get a jog-to-third triple with no chance of an out - - instead of a Home-run possibility with a chance of striking or flying out - you take the triple.    

If you can make Trump look weak and feeble and scared and remove any possible downside of a misspeak in a debate against the pathological liar, campaign manager Ubet would take the no debate in a heartbeat at this point.   And if he won’t back out, you can force him to use your own terms.  Which is in and of itself a power-play that diminishes Trump.

 I applaud the strategy.

Yeah, at this point Kamala is winning. She shouldn't back out of debates, but Trump really can't do that. He needs them a lot more than she does.

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Posted

It probably doesn't really matter to the Harris camp.  The point may be that they're able to make Trump play defense on small stuff.  He'll ramble on about muted mics in speeches for a week.  He'll looks like a confused, old man doing it.  Meanwhile, she keeps campaigning and taking ground.

Posted
2 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

One time in college I ate an entire bag of powerfulnnz

I used to load up on day old powerfulnnz at Ken's when they rotated their stock at 4:00 a.m.  They were edible, and cheap.

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Posted
1 hour ago, tx ind said:

I just want there to be some actual fact checking on Trump.

My simple brain doesnt even understand how that could transpire. Every batch of verbal diarrhea that spills out of his fucking mouth is full of inaccuracies and lies. You cant even keep up. What would it look like? a 90 second rant by dotard, followed by a 10 minute fact checking explanation 10 minutes after the fact, and after the debate has already moved on. He is incapable of telling the truth, the entire fucking thing would bog down. 

Posted
1 minute ago, Blotto said:

My simple brain doesnt even understand how that could transpire. Every batch of verbal diarrhea that spills out of his fucking mouth is full of inaccuracies and lies. You cant even keep up. What would it look like? a 90 second rant by dotard, followed by a 10 minute fact checking explanation 10 minutes after the fact, and after the debate has already moved on. He is incapable of telling the truth, the entire fucking thing would bog down. 

Not at all.  You have one person who says "that was a lie" to a team of a half dozen or so fact checkers, and they take turns rotating through a quick google search after which they put up a simple refutation.  It probably wouldn't take a minute per.

Posted (edited)
22 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

there were never any terms for a Harris Trump debate. Any discussions were about a Biden Trump debate.

And I don’t think the media matters. “Trump cancels debate” will be the headline.     One thing about Trump is that he bloviates so much is there is most assuredly some clip of him talking about ‘anytime anywhere’ I’ll debate.   He can’t help himself.

Oh please, you think the media cares about that nuance? The headline will be "Harris Spurns Debate." At best, it will be "Debate Cancelled as for Inability to Agree to Terms." Only MSNBC will tell the truth that trump cowered his way out of the debate. 

Edited by 'stache
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Posted

you guys are smoking some insane drugs if you think Harris is going to "back out of the debate" or get blamed for it not happening and Trump backing out. 

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