US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4673

It’s hard to know exactly when the Republican Party assumed the mantle of the “stupid party.”

Stupidity is not an accusation that could be hurled against such prominent early Republicans as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root and Charles Evans Hughes. But by the 1950s, it had become an established shibboleth that the “eggheads” were for Adlai Stevenson and the “boobs” for Dwight D. Eisenhower — a view endorsed by Richard Hofstadter’s 1963 book “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life,” which contrasted Stevenson, “a politician of uncommon mind and style, whose appeal to intellectuals overshadowed anything in recent history,” with Eisenhower — “conventional in mind, relatively inarticulate.” The John F. Kennedy presidency, with its glittering court of Camelot, cemented the impression that it was the Democrats who represented the thinking men and women of America.

Rather than run away from the anti-intellectual label, Republicans embraced it for their own political purposes. In his “time for choosing” speech, Ronald Reagan said that the issue in the 1964 election was “whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant Capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.” Richard M. Nixon appealed to the “silent majority” and the “hard hats,” while his vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, issued slashing attacks on an “effete core of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.”

William F. Buckley Jr. famously said, “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the 2,000 faculty members of Harvard University.” More recently, George W. Bush joked at a Yale commencement: “To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students I say, you, too, can be president of the United States.”

Many Democrats took all this at face value and congratulated themselves for being smarter than the benighted Republicans. Here’s the thing, though: The Republican embrace of anti-intellectualism was, to a large extent, a put-on. At least until now.

On August 08 2016 14:25 KwarK wrote:

These deals, they're the worst deals, they, China you see, they're laughing at us and they say that Obama is a bad negotiator, that's why Japan, and like the other Mexican countries, they're taking advantage of us. It's a bad deal. They think we're stupid. The Middle Easts, they hear about these deals and they come to me and they say "Donald, I don't believe it" and I say that they should believe it because I don't agree with them. They don't pay anything because they don't think we can walk away. And Obama won't walk away from the Muslims. I'm not saying why he won't but a lot of people tell me he's a Muslim. I don't know, all I know is that he gave a lot of money to his Muslim friends in Iran. And he says that's not exactly how it happened, well, I don't know how it happened, I don't know what the deal is, I haven't read it, all I know is that it's a bad deal. A lot of folks have read it, smart folks, folks that can read, and they don't like it.

NEW YORK — Taken aback by the size of Donald Trump’s July fundraising haul, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is quickly working to beef up its efforts to raise campaign cash before the fall — sending the candidate, running mate Tim Kaine, and former President Bill Clinton on an all-out financial sprint through August while explicitly warning top fundraisers this week that they need to pick up the pace.

In an internal memo, first obtained by POLITICO, that will be circulated to high-level donors on Monday morning, campaign manager Robby Mook specifically writes that the Republican nominee’s July haul overshot the campaign’s expectations, necessitating a new wave of action.

“Donald Trump also had his best fundraising month of the campaign, raising $80 million,” explains Mook in the roughly 750-word missive — titled “Wake Up Call” — after trumpeting Clinton’s own $90 million haul between the campaign and other Democratic committees. “This was far more than anyone expected — and should be a wake-up call to all Hillary supporters. We must redouble our efforts in the coming weeks."

Clinton has had a robust fundraising operation going since she launched her campaign in April 2015, allowing her to build up a cash stockpile of $58 million heading into August and funding campaign ads across the country that Trump has been unable or unwilling to match — that's in addition to the big-money efforts from her supportive super PACs. But Trump’s recent cash strength after months of not lifting a finger to raise money has given party leaders pause, particularly since — as Mook notes — Clinton’s cash pace is behind that of President Barack Obama four years ago.

“While we are very proud of the more than $469 million our campaign has raised so far, we remain behind the historic pace that President Obama set in 2012, raising $520 million during the same time frame. With only three months to go, it is critical that we close the gap between President Obama’s record-level fundraising and the pace we are currently on,” reads the memo. “Falling short of the resources raised in 2012 will require us to scale back from the investments President Obama’s campaign made in organizing, data and other critical tools."

To avoid such a fate while matched up against a Trump operation with $37 million on hand, the campaign is sending both Clintons and Kaine on a fast-paced fundraising tour of the country on top of their public campaigning. And while many of their events were scheduled prior to the release of Trump’s numbers, the campaign intends to use Trump’s figures to amp up the urgency among its fundraisers.

On August 08 2016 23:01 RoomOfMush wrote:
are candidates somehow requierd to spend the money or can trump just pocket the money now and end his campaign? Seems like an easy way to become a multi-millionaire.

On August 08 2016 23:01 RoomOfMush wrote:
are candidates somehow requierd to spend the money or can trump just pocket the money now and end his campaign? Seems like an easy way to become a multi-millionaire.

On August 08 2016 23:49 Doodsmack wrote:
So Trump lied through his teeth about contacting Kasich for VP? Is there still any claim to Trump being less crooked than Hillary? I'd like to hear the argument.