I have read, listened, or watched presidential politics for the past thirteen conventions and elections. I have mostly voted for democrats but I have strayed on several occasions to vote for the other candidate because I thought he was the best man for the job. This election year I have paid particular attention to all the republican candidates because this year is different and because there were so many candidates again. I still think Romney might have made a good president but he didn't win. I liked his morals and I think he struggled over his decisions, and he was religious but didn't flaunt his religious views. Yet, let me say so there will be no doubt, I voted for Barack Obama. I struggled with this vote but came to the conclusion Romney could not win. If Romney was running this time and I was hoping he would, he would get my vote. I thought at first Donald Trump was a joke. I couldn't believe republicans would take him seriously. Yet he kept winning. One by won he kept knocking off my favorite republican candidates. He has proven to be a winner in the face of insurmountable odds. So much so I thought he might have a chance of winning the nomination of his party for the presidency. He did win the nomination fair and square. In that respect he is amazing. But he has hood winked and fooled so many good voters I am beginning to think anything is possible. Trump is a first class con man. I have come to the conclusion that Donald Trump can not win this upcoming election. I will admit Hillary Clinton carries a lot of baggage. Further, I will admit and firmly state, Hillary Clinton is not nearly so bad as republicans make out. Much of their charges against Clinton are simply not true. They are false charges made up because they can not come up with any serious charges she might be guilty of that republicans by and large are not guilty of themselves. Trump is an outsider and many republicans find that refreshing. I suggest that is shallow thinking. Trump shoots from the hip. He makes decisions from a state of ignorance. He may be a good businessman but that is not a qualification for the presidency. From what I have seen so far, Trump would be a disaster for this country. He is not the man for the job and I am convinced there are enough informed voters who will go to the polls and defeat him. Hillary may not be my best choice for this office but she is by far the best one running this election year.
Sorry, Bill, but you can put me firmly in the ABC column. I won't go into all the details because they have been hashed out over and over. I think Hillary wants to be the first woman president badly enough to sell her soul to the devil. I think she may have already done so.
Shirley, I expect nothing less. I will not offer debate. I am not out to change other's views. This is merely my opinion. It may be that Hillary would sell her soul to whoever for this job. I believe she is better qualified and in my bones I believe Trump can't win, but then, this is why we have elections.
I honestly think it will be a close election. However it goes, there are going to be some angry people afterward.
I agree and if Trump wins it will make little difference what kind of president he turns out to be, he will be our president. If Hillary wins she will be treated as Obama has been treated. The Congress just won't work with her. I remember it was said of Franklin Roosevelt by his peers, that he was not smart enough to be president. He astounded them even though most didn't agree with him.
Let me toss in my 2 cents worth. This is a parallelism of yours with ours regarding presidential candidates and elections. Who would think that Rody Duterte would be our president? He based from head to foot, not by a simple smear but with facts. In January of 2015, Duterte cursed the Pope due to the traffic caused by the arrival of the Catholic pontiff. The country is predominantly Catholic so that candidate has gone to the dogs. But surprisingly, his ratings in the survey was inching upwards just a week after it dipped due to that bad comment against the head of the Catholic church. And in the heat of the campaign, there was the new clip about a rape case where Duterte said that the rape victim was pretty and the mayor should have been the first one (to rape). If those cases are not enough then the guy simply has the magic for winning. And come the May 9 elections, Duterte won by a comfortable margin against Hillary, huh, I mean against the administration's candidate. Yesterday there was the report on the latest trust rating survey where Duterte got 91% approval with 8% undecided. Let's see if Trump will follow the footsteps of Duterte.
@Bill Boggs, that was a very good assessment of the political situation. I disagree with some of it and I don't come to the same conclusions but it was very well thought out, and your opinion is as valuable as mine. Over and over during the primary season, Trump would say something that I thought was the wrong thing to say, and I'd think that he really blew it now. Yet, the next polls would show that he had gained points. He has to conduct a general campaign differently than a primary campaign, not so much because he is trying to fool everyone but because he is speaking to a different audience in the general election than he was in the primary. I acted differently when I was among family and friends than I did when I was at work or when I was in a hospital boardroom trying to persuade a group of doctors to allow my paramedic students to start IVs or intubate people in the hospital, but I don't think that I was being disingenuous in any case. Whatever the situation, I was being myself, and I think that's the case with Trump on the campaign trail as well.
Thanks for the comment and you may be right about Trump. For some long time I was hoping he would win, then everything was just 'Amazing' with him. If he wins and it may be closer than i imagined, I hope he realizes the value of good advisors on the international scene, whatever their bent.
I didn't like Trump too much from the beginning, he seemed all over the place, changing his mind 3 times in one day sometimes. His Brexit interview sucked. He's too brash for my tastes. He's scowling in every picture I've seen of him. I never thought he'd get as far as he did but maybe brash was the plan and it worked. I'm hoping he's really moderate because I don't want far right as President. He needs to get down to business when the campaigning starts and really talk and act more presidential. State his views and how he plans on accomplishing them. He's hated by many and I'm hoping it won't get ugly if he's elected....hopefully if that sh*t starts he'll show that It won't work. I'm sure he really wants America to be great, he's got a lot invested in it and also it's the future for his 5 kids and their kids. I won't vote Hillary because my husband would haunt me ...he hated Bill Clinton and we really did leave the country When he was president, my husband said he would but it just worked out that way. I am voting Trump and it's going to be close so he better have his people knowing what they're doing. No more speech mistakes. Also, Hillary has been in the whitehouse long enough, hasn't done anything impressive and you know she controlled Bill, then these past 8 years...nothing positive just negatives in her role as Secretary of State. Her health isn't the greatest....why she doesn't just enjoy life now as a grandmother and wife (joke)? She's too power hungry. Maybe the thought of leading a normal life with Bill scares the crap out of her...now I'm getting silly but I'm tired of seeing her face.
For me, this is an odd election. I am very much caught up with hoping that Donald Trump can win the election, yet it's not because I view Trump as being everything I ever wanted in a president. In fact, if I believed everyone who was running, on the issues my first choice would have been Rand Paul, and my second choice would have been Ted Cruz. But both of these people are so politically ambitious that I don't believe anything they say, and people who will do whatever they have to do to get power and keep it are not what we need today. Several of Trump's positions are things that I don't agree with, but he's on the right side of the things that matter the most to me. I can't even say that I wholly trust Trump to do the right thing if elected, let alone the things I'd like him to do, but I view him as the only chance we have this year. I think that we know what we'll have with Hillary, and that is not at all what I want. With Trump, there is a chance that we can get on the right track as a country. This is bolstered by the fact that all of the people who I view as being the most dangerous people on the political scene hate Trump. Although some of these same people are supporting him now that he's the nominee, since they want to retain their positions in the GOP, they were very much afraid of a Trump presidency, and this is what gives me hope that maybe he will change the agenda. Even if the agenda he decides to follow isn't the road that I'd like to be on, at least we won't be continuing along the same road, and that might give us time to find someone even better in eight years. More optimistically, there is also the chance that he will be far better than I expect him to be.
Things can't get any worse than they are now. Trump has an ego and he will want to be remembered as a great president.
There is no reason that I can see for Donald Trump to quit doing what he has been doing all his life just to become president. He has put not only his life in jeopardy, but also possibly his family's lives. He can wear a bullet-proof vest; but that does not protect him from a head shot from some sharpshooter hidden somewhere safe, and Melania certainly has nothing to protect her when she is on stage, nor do any of his children, probably. In the interview done about 10 years ago with Oprah (think it is posted on the forum somewhere), she asks Donald Trump about running for president, and he says "he is not interested, but if the country ever gets into a bad enough situation, then he would do it", or words to that effect. I really believe that the only reason that Trump is running for President IS because he truly cares about America, and he wants to try and get this country back on track again. Bobby says, and I agree, that if a President Trump can actually improve the conditions here, he won't even run for a second term, providing there is someone else available who will further the improvemant of the country we all love. Donald Trump has seen that this country needs someone who will give their all to try and make us great again, and we have asked him to be our "knight in shining armour" and save the country. I just hope that it does not cost him his life in trying to do that.
Well we Americans got a big decision to make this Nov. We got to vote for a Mayor and a Pres. Too bad we couldn't vote for Obama a third term, lol. Bernie had such a good start until he said the rich are to blame for things. The rich donate a lot to America and the world...foodbank donations, scholarships and Shriner's Hosp and so much more. Oh well this was then and now is happening...good luck on who we vote for. Whomever it is I hope they got a heart for we Senior Citizens and our needs...God help us all!