US Presidential race

[Neferti]

I watched about 5 minutes of it and it was very boring and very false. The commentators had varying opinions - Hillary was way out in front or Trump did well - it's hard to tell who was supposed to have won.

Since us Aussies cannot vote, I care less.

[Rorschach]

You really have to wonder how any party would consider Trump as a viable candidate.

One poll in Australia after the last debate answers the question...

Should Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton be US president?

Clinton..............................87%
Trump...13%

Total votes: 114270

[IQS.RLOW]

Brook, N.Y. — A SUNY professor continues to project Donald Trump as the likely winner of this year's election and he's critiquing polls that predict the opposite in a new opinion piece.

Helmut Norpoth has been predicting a Trump victory since early this year. His model currently projects a win for the Republican with a certainty of 87 to 99 percent.

Norpoth is a professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island.

That flies in the face of just about every other major election forecast out there, which mostly give an edge to Democrat Hillary Clinton, notes the Daily Mail.

Norpoth wrote in The Hill that although the race looks decided, current polling methods are "bunk."

The projections for Clinton are all based on opinion polls, which are flawed because they don't reflect actions, Norpoth wrote. They're about what voters think of Clinton or Trump, but they can't tell us exactly how voters will act on those thoughts.

"It is ingrained in all of us that voting is civic duty," he says. "So nearly all of us say, oh yes, I'll vote, and then many will not follow through."

Instead of opinion polling, Norpoth relies on statistics from candidates' performances in party primaries and patterns in the electoral cycle to forecast results. The model correctly predicted the victor in every presidential election since 1996, according to the Daily Mail.

Running the model on earlier campaigns comes up with the correct outcome for every race since 1912, except the 1960 election.

Norpoth wrote on his site that Trump's victories in early primary states are key predictors of his chances in November. The cycle also favors the GOP after two terms of a Democrat in the White House.

"So hold off on trusting poll-driven proclamations of a Clinton victory just yet," Norpoth wrote in The Hill. "Voters have a way of always getting the last word."

[DrMattus]

I missed the debate but saw some shorts. I think Trump look better this time around. Did anyone see the debate?

I saw the debate. It was scrappy, and Trump won, but not by enough to change the outcome.

To Trump's advantage, this was a Fox moderated debate, which meant issues like gun freedom and recreational abortions were going to figure prominently. Clinton had to be equivocal about the second amendment, and defend very late term (i.e. 1 - 2 days from birth) abortions. I don't care how much heartland evangelicals hate trump, she just became a gun-hating babykiller and lost those states.

Trump was strong when talking about trade. He pointed out that the US had come off badly in trade deals, and he suggested that this was because the people making the trade deals are career politicians, or people appointed as a favour for political support. Such people are terrible negotiators and he simply said he will use better negotiators. If he couldn't negotiate a better deal for America, then America would go it's own way. I thought it was very strong and would play very well to American voters. It harnessed the "Brexit" philosphy and played to his strength as a businessman.

He also put Hillary on the defensive much more, but Trump missed some glaring opportunities to knock her out. For example, the moderator quoted from the Wikileaks release of Clinton's wall street speech transcripts, where she said she was for "open borders". Trump tried to use this to criticise Clinton for being soft on illegal immigration and talk about his own wall. However, Clinton deflected away from discussing immigration by expressing her shock and outrage that "Russian hackers" were trying to influence the outcome of the US election with the help of wikileaks. She actually turned it around and forced Trump to condemn the leaks of her transcripts. This was fucking stupid. Trump should not have done that, his response should have been "Hillary, you can't rig an election with the truth. You can blame Russia, but I will not condemn the truth" and then segue on about how he's going to drain the swamp of Washington. This was a huge missed opportunity and a bit of an own goal really.

All this was going pretty well, but then Trump fucked up and said he may or may not accept the outcome of the election. And now that's all the media want to talk about. Any points he gained from the above topics are going to be overlooked by this nonsense. He could have handled this much better. Words like "trust but verify" in a close election or invoking Gore/Bush would have been better.

[Neferti]

There's an email doing the rounds with the heading "Trump does the Unthinkable", apparently something written by one Liz Crokin, who ever she is. It outlines all the "good stuff" that Trump has done over the years. I found a link, if you want to read it.

http://townhall.com/columnists/lizcroki ... e-n2190160

[DrMattus]

There's an email doing the rounds with the heading "Trump does the Unthinkable", apparently something written by one Liz Crokin, who ever she is. It outlines all the "good stuff" that Trump has done over the years. I found a link, if you want to read it.

http://townhall.com/columnists/lizcroki ... e-n2190160

During an election the campaign will send out "press releases" like this, which are simply lists of all the good shit their candidate has done, or a list of all the nasty shit their opponent has done. It is incredibly lazy journalism to simply submit such a list as an article. I wonder if she even came up with the witty title.

[Rorschach]

Really late term abortions 1-2 days from birth.... you have got to be kidding me... ?????
1. If a medical professional thinks the mother's life is in danger and a late term abortion is needed it should be performed.
2. If its 1-2 days from birth don't you think a medical practitioner would induce the birth or perform a caesarian?
3. If the unborn baby is dead the quicker it is removed from the woman's body, the better IMO... just for her mental well being.

[Rorschach]

As for accepting or not the election result... really? Who cares.
It ain't a biggy, go cry in a corner and get over it.

[DrMattus]

Really late term abortions 1-2 days from birth....

Yes. Clinton was defending 9 month abortions during the debate. After Trump had described the procedure in horrific gory detail.

you have got to be kidding me... ?????

No. Enjoy.

1. If a medical professional thinks the mother's life is in danger and a late term abortion is needed it should be performed.

Yes but that's not the only reason you can abort.

2. If its 1-2 days from birth don't you think a medical practitioner would induce the birth or perform a caesarian?

Clinton agrees but argued that decision should be made by the doctor and the mother, not the federal govt.

3. If the unborn baby is dead the quicker it is removed from the woman's body, the better IMO... just for her mental well being.

To be fair, "death" is a pretty grey area in utero.

[Black Orchid]

A 9 month termination is not an abortion. It's a BIRTH!