Tag: hillary clinton

Donald Trump Pulls Off Election Surprise

Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States after pulling out the biggest election night surprise since 1948.

Trump clinched his election victory with surprising strength in the “Rust Belt” states, an area where Hillary Clinton and the Democrats miscalculated their strength especially in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The presidential result emphasizes the deep dissatisfaction voters feel with Washington and what is called ‘politics as usual.’ Trump’s victory can be credited to his ability to sell himself as an outsider from the political establishment of both parties.

The Trump victory brought immediate uncertainty to financial markets as world stocks began tanking around 9 p.m. on election night and Dow futures dropped 650 points overnight. This is not the reaction of the stock markets that one would expect with a Republican candidate winning the presidency. The markets rebounded later to recover most or all of their losses.

This is not the reaction of the stock markets that one would expect with a Republican candidate winning the presidency.

However, voter rejection of politics as usual only extended as far as the presidential race. Most members of Congress seeking re-election were returned to their seats without a problem, some without an opponent.

So, if you’re expecting big changes in Washington with Trump as president, get ready for a disappointment. Congress still controls the domestic agenda as well as the purse strings.

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Donald Trump Campaign Shortchanges American Voters

American voters hoping for change in the politics of Washington, D.C. got shafted by the Donald Trump campaign for president.

These are the voters that carried Trump through the primaries, solidly rejecting one establishment candidate after another to give Trump a first ballot nomination.

These are the voters who believed Trump was a breath of fresh air for the Republican Party ready to remake the party and remake the federal government.

What nobody realized was that Trump wasn’t in the election to head a populist movement and didn’t have any programs or policies to change anything.

Trump was in the election to further boost his own gigantic ego, period.

Trump lives in his own alternate reality – one where he’s the smartest, the most dynamic, the most successful person on earth and one in which he always wins.

And when he doesn’t win, it’s not his fault. It is due to the nefarious deeds of others.

We went through Trump’s version of reality politics when he thought he was going to come up short of the delegates necessary to secure a first ballot nomination from the Republican Party.

Then it was his opponents and party officials who were conspiring to steal the nomination from Trump.

Now, it’s Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, the media and Wall Street, among many, who are conspiring to steal the general election from Trump.

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First Presidential Debate Changes Nothing

The first presidential debate is over and I don’t believe anything has changed.

An after the debate poll showed Hillary Clinton the winner over Donald Trump by a 62 – 27 percent margin.

I don’t think that matters. Remember, by all accounts, Romney trounced Obama in their first debate four years ago. And it didn’t matter.

Both candidates played to their base last night. Clinton’s base is going to vote for her and Trump’s base is going to vote for him, no matter what.

I don’t believe either candidate did anything last night to swing undecided voters their way.

Both candidates had their moments.

Trump agreed that Clinton has a lot of experience in government, but called it “bad experience.”

Clinton said, “Donald I know you live in your own reality.”

Both statements are true to the candidates’ respective supporters. Neither can be called a defining moment that could swing an election.

Trump hammers away dissing career politicians. Who does he think he will be dealing with if he gets to the White House?

Clinton touts her experience, but half of the Washington crowd will never agree with her on anything.

Neither answered the question that probably is more important to Americans than any other – “How will you bring back jobs?”

Trump spent his time telling us why jobs left the country. Clinton said she was going to work really hard to get new jobs, but never told us how.

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Donald Trump Runs Cruz Out of Race – Update

Kasich to Suspend Campaign

A senior campaign official for John Kasich said the Ohio governor plans to announcee he is suspending his presidential primary campaign today.

It appears reality has finally sunk in to the final Republican candidate left standing against Donald Trump. Reality says the Kasich campaign was over whether he suspended it or not.

Trump will have locked up the nomination by the time the Republicans gather in Cleveland for their national convention in July.

Now it will be interesting to see the developing strategy for winning the general election in November.

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Donald Trump burned down the Ted Cruz firewall in Indiana and Cruz suspended his campaign for the presidency after getting clobbered by Hoosier voters.

The victory for Trump is not only over Cruz and the other candidates who started in the race, but over the Republican Party itself.

I don’t know if the party leaders get it, but, this year at least, the voters have demonstrated over and over they don’t want an establishment politician in the presidency.

This is a populist election year. Voters are tired of the political polarization the two parties have fed us for over 30 years while the middle class contracts and more good jobs disappear to foreign countries every year.

It’s not completely over because Trump does not have the 1,237 delegates needed to sew up the nomination yet. But he will by first ballot time because nothing of consequence stands in his way.

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Presidential Primary Home Stretch

After sweeping five presidential primaries in big fashion last night, I think Donald Trump can tell the fat lady to start warming up her voice.

After six straight overwhelming primary wins, Trump has at least entered the home stretch to the Republican presidential nomination while rivals John Kasich and Ted Cruz are fading fast.

Cruz certainly demonstrated to Republican delegates to the national convention why he shouldn’t be the party’s choice with one second place finish and four thirds.

Cruz had a new excuse yesterday for his poor showings – It’s the media’s fault. Coming from a man who’s often wrong, but never in doubt, such a statement is not unexpected.

Cruz was in Indiana yesterday campaigning among the voters he predicts will be the stoppers to Trump’s nomination run.

Outside his own state of Texas, Indiana is a state that could buy into Cruz’s nonsense. After all, it’s only two years ago that Republican voters chose Richard Mourdock over long-time incumbent Richard Luger in a primary for the Republican nomination for the Senate.

Mourdock went on to snatch defeat from almost certain victory in this red state with the brilliant statement ‘if a woman becomes pregnant through an act of rape, It’s God’s Will.’

Kasich should be ashamed of himself for even thinking of joining is some type of collusion with Cruz to ‘Stop Trump’ from gaining the nomination.

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Republican Presidential Primary Saturday

After nearly two weeks of non-stop mudslinging, Republican presidential primary candidates can sit back and see whose negative ads were most successful.

Or maybe not.

Voters will go to polls Saturday February 20 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. to vote for the Republican of their choice. The Democratic presidential primary is Saturday February 27.

Those voters who cast a ballot in the Republican primary are not eligible to also vote in the Democratic primary.

Acceptable forms of ID to vote are driver’s license or other DMV ID, passport, military ID, or SC voter registration card.

I have spoken to several staunch Republicans in Horry County who plan to forego their own party’s primary in order to vote for Bernie Sanders in a week. As a group they support Donald Trump and feel confident in their favorite’s ability to win the South Carolina primary without their vote. Instead, they are in a “stop Hillary” frame of mind.

If polls are to be believed, Trump is on his way to a second straight primary victory. Ted Cruz is currently polling ahead of Marco Rubio for second with Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Ben Carson rounding out the field in that order.

Personally, I see Trump winning with Rubio scoring a surprise second and Cruz third. Rubio remains the choice of a majority of the Republican establishment while the Bush campaign continues to founder.

But, it looks more like a brokered convention is in the offing for the Republicans, the only hope that keeps the Bush candidacy alive.

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Presidential Politics 2016

On the first working day of the New Year, my thoughts are of presidential primaries.

For the next seven weeks, South Carolina will be in the national spotlight as candidates travel throughout the state hoping to convince supporters they are the best person to be our next president.

Of course, this will be mostly on the Republican side as South Carolina is one of the most intensely conservative states in the nation.

Right now that looks like it means Donald Trump and, possibly, Ted Cruz against the field.

The Trump phenomenon is holding, even gaining a little momentum as the voting nears. Cruz, who must be considered another outsider in traditional Republican circles, has been coming on strong in the minds of South Carolina voters for the last month.

More traditional, establishment candidates, such as Jeb Bush, are trailing miserably.

If nothing else, this is a year of protest against the system, something traditional politicos have been slow to pick up on.

And what better state to lead that protest than South Carolina?

When Trump first announced his candidacy, I thought we would have a couple of months of fun with his outrageousness, then, he would fade from view.

That hasn’t happened.

The more outrageous Trump’s pronouncements are, the more his support grows.

Because the general feeling throughout the country is the system needs change.

I have been socially liberal all my life, but, when Trump calls for an end to all Muslim immigrants into the country, it strikes a sympathetic cord within me.

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Early Presidential Candidates Fail to Stir Voters

An early poll of potential presidential candidates for 2016 showed American voters don’t have anyone they really like at this point.

A sampling of the results:

Thirty percent of Republicans say they definitely won’t vote for Chris Christie.

Fifty percent of Americans say they definitely won’t vote for Jeb Bush.

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Benghazi: Searching for Truth, Exposing Failure, and Saluting Heroism

Benghazi: Searching for Truth

Wednesday’s Benghazi hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee gave Americans the first public eyewitness account from anyone actually on the ground in Libya on September 11, 2012.

Gregory Hicks, the former number two at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, walked committee members through that fateful night. The testimony of the witnesses was totally gripping, extraordinary, and very emotional. Even if some of this account had already been made public, hearing it live was nothing less than tragic.

Unbelievably, it took eight months for this hearing to happen. Credit goes to the great courage of the three witnesses—Hicks, Mark Thompson, who leads State’s Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST), and Eric Nordstrom, former regional security officer for the Middle East. And credit also goes to the persistence of committee chairman Darrell Issa (R–CA) to shine a light on the terrorist attack that took the lives of four brave Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Most impressive were the glaring contrasts contained in the testimony. Hicks’s on-the-ground testimony shows both the glaring inadequacy of Washington’s response and the heroic efforts of the embassy and CIA teams on the ground in Libya. Both aspects of this case should be explored.

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