Can an "Independent" win a Presidency?

Well, no, not necessarily. The other candidate would have ran against Clinton and may or may not have beat her.



Yes.



I'm saying that in your examples.

If Trump was ousted and he ran 3rd party against say Bush. Clinton would have won.

If Obama was ousted and he ran 3rd party against say Clinton. Kerry would have won.


With your 3rd hypothetical candidate who holds positions that both right and left leaning independents would break off for....well, show me that candidate. I laid out a bunch of possible policy conditions. Tell me what candidate would have to do to appeal to both sides.

So the fact Obama was endorsed by the party was more important to voters than Obama himself?


I think people are too polarized. People on both sides need to do soul searching and figure out an ethical strategy for dealing with their enemies on the other side, and then the voters will have to choose which side they think can do a better job of ethically disciplining the other side's shortcomings and failures.

Trump critic Kasich to visit New Hampshire in fall, sparking more 2020 speculation of a primary challenge
By Paul Steinhauser | Fox News


MANCHESTER, NH – Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich plans a likely visit to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state of New Hampshire next month or in early October, a top Kasich adviser told Fox News.

A trip by the very vocal critic of President Trump – first reported by The Washington Post – will spark further speculation that Kasich is seriously weighing a long-shot GOP primary challenge against the president.

KASICH SAYS 'ALL OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE' REGARDING LONG-SHOT GOP PRIMARY CHALLENGE AGAINST TRUMP

“The governor’s never closed the door to challenging Trump,” senior adviser John Weaver told Fox News.

Trump easily won the 2016 GOP presidential primary in New Hampshire, launching him toward winning the Republican nomination and eventually the White House. Kasich came in second behind Trump, but ahead of the rest of the large field of GOP contenders. He eventually ended his White House bid late in the primary calendar but never endorsed Trump during the general election and to date remains critical of the president.

“Our organization in New Hampshire has stayed very solid since the 2016 primary,” Weaver highlighted.

And he added that “in fact it’s grown” given the way Trump has handled himself as president.

“It’s the prudent thing to do to visit the state not only to talk to our team members but also to New Hampshire citizens about the process and their role in it,” Weaver added.

And he emphasized that Kasich – a fiscally conservative longtime congressman before serving two terms as Ohio’s governor – has seen an increase in overtures by supporters urging him to run in 2020, due to their concerns about the president’s handling of the economy. He added that more business leaders have reached out, “concerned about Trump’s erratic behavior on trade policy.”

Kasich visited the crucial first primary state a handful of times since ending his presidential campaign, most recently last November following the midterm elections.

“I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” Kasich told Fox News at the time, emphasizing that “all the options are on the table.”

“I have to see what the situation is and whether I could really have an impact. I don’t want to waste anybody’s time if there’s not a clear path to having a major impact,” Kasich explained.

The obvious early voting state to make a stand against Trump would be New Hampshire, a purple state with a strong libertarian streak that allows independent voters to cast ballots in either the GOP or Democratic presidential primaries.

But even though Kasich retains a small group of solid supporters in the state, any path to winning the nomination still seems far-fetched at best.

The president enjoys strong support among Granite State Republicans. The latest evidence: a poll this month from the University of New Hampshire showing Trump with an 82 percent approval score among Republicans.

There’s already a Republican challenging Trump in the primaries – former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld. He’s been making near-weekly trips to New Hampshire since February and officially launched his bid in April. But he’s failed – to date – to make a dent in the polls.

SANFORD SAYS HE'LL DECIDE ON PRIMARY CHALLENGE BY LABOR DAY

Last week, former South Carolina governor and congressman Mark Sanford visited New Hampshire, as he mulls a primary challenge against Trump. Sanford told Fox News he’ll decide by around Labor Day if he’s going to mount what he has conceded would be a "long-shot” GOP primary bid against the president.

Aides tell Fox News the trip and the feedback Sanford received may make him more likely to run.

The aim of the longtime deficit hawk is to make the explosion of federal spending and a ballooning national debt – which has accelerated during Trump’s tenure in the White House – a conversation in the presidential campaign.

“I think we need to have a conversation as Republicans about what it means to be a Republican,” Sanford said. “One of the cornerstones to the Republican Party historically was, do we spend beyond our means? Do we believe in some level of financial sanity? And that seems to have gone out of the window of late.”

But Sanford – as he has since first acknowledging he was considering a primary challenge – once again downplayed his chances, emphasizing “I think you have to acknowledge upfront that it’s a long shot.”

It's funny to read this kind of post because of how obvious it is that the poster is not interested in either fiscal conservation or 'what it means to be a Republican.' It is just someone hoping to divide Republican votes between candidates to make it easier for a Democrat to win.

A much more interesting REAL discussion would be to analyze the possibilities for achieving meaningful and effective fiscal conservation in an economic climate where there are so many avenues for borrowing and repaying loans by borrowing from other sources and/or manipulating markets in various ways.

If Republicans can't effectively stimulate fiscal conservation by cutting and/or limiting government spending, then what can they do? Trumponomic policies tend to destabilize markets by confronting investors with instabilities such as trade barriers and confusion about what effects the public statements of an unpopular 'wildcard' president can have on markets.

As such, you can criticize Trump for not cutting government spending more; but to the extent that doing so would result in more market growth due to investor confidence rising, the ultimate effect wouldn't be a more fiscally-conservative economy.

When Trump says, on the other hand, that he is for cutting interest rates to maintain economic growth despite signs of impending recession, this sends a signal to markets that 1) recession is impending and 2)the president doesn't control the Federal Reserve Bank; so investors can assume that all the government stimulus and rate cuts are reaching their limits and thus that the economy will soon go into recession, which in itself will cause those investors to invest more cautiously. That in itself can effectuate the growth reductions that DO stimulate fiscal conservation.

Really the economy has to go into recession at some point or other anyway, because fiscal conservation isn't easily stimulated without the moral hazard that liberal spending and investment will cause you to lose your money. Theoretically it could continue growing indefinitely IF fiscal conservation was strong enough to prevent inflation from happening; but that would also require workers/unions to back away from demands for wage increases, which never happens.

Well, it's not up to Trump to dictate interest rate cuts. If you knew anything about the Fed Reserve and monetary policy, you'd understand Trump is a joke.

It's also obvious you haven't researched any of Kasich's plans, his time in Congress or his Governorship.

So, it's just another attempt at perusing bloated filler just to put lines on a page. Therefore, bravo to you.

No, of course not; which is why it's funny that it will have an economic effect for him to speak publicly about it.

Growthists always want growth and they want to avoid recession. That's what Keynesianism is all about. So what Democrats are always doing is making up reasons to trigger interest rate cuts for the sake of achieving more growth stimulus, only they don't say it directly.

That's why it's funny for Trump to say it directly, i.e. because the reason it's not good to always stimulate more growth is inflation and the way to curb/reverse inflation is to stimulate fiscal discipline/conservation. So if Trump explicitly tells the Fed to do what the Democrats always try to manipulate the Fed to do, then Democrat anti-Trumpers will question Trump's growthism and seek fiscal discipline instead. Basically, Trump is using reverse psychology to outsmart Democrats at their own game by mocking them into going against their own growthism.


I just wanted to point out that the only reason you posted about a third candidate challenging Trump on fiscal discipline is to divide the Republican party in order to give the Democrat a better shot at winning.

You're not really interested in fiscal discipline or anything else remotely Republican, are you? All you want is to trump the Republican party and supercede it with feminist social-justice, socially-liberal socialism as per the left's authorized dogma, correct?

I don't want to be TRILLIONS in debt.

Republican John Kasich leads charge for balanced budget vote

By JULIE CARR SMYTH - Associated Press - Saturday, March 25, 2017
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Republican John Kasich is not giving up on his goal of a federal balanced budget amendment, a tool the Ohio governor says is ever more important as the U.S. national debt ticks toward $20 trillion.

“The issue is not a partisan issue,” Kasich told The Associated Press in an interview. “It’s about economic growth and our children’s and our grandchildren’s future.”

As a presidential contender last year, Kasich pledged he would balance the federal budget within eight years while cutting taxes and spending more on the military. To make it work, the budget-balancing former congressman had proposed limiting the federal role in education, transportation, job training and Medicaid - areas he would have turned over in large part to the states.

Kasich, 64, has not let his failed White House ambitions interfere with his passion on the issue. He played a key role last month in Wyoming becoming the 29th state to request an Article V constitutional convention aimed at amending a balanced budget amendment into the U.S. Constitution.

His sights are now set on Idaho, Arizona, Kentucky, South Carolina and Wisconsin - which he views as the best chances of reaching the 34 states necessary to make the convention a reality.

Kasich says he’s in a race with time. Not only is the growing debt a “fiscal time bomb” in Kasich’s view, but some states are rethinking their support, he said - including most recently New Mexico, who recently rescinded its convention request and took the total number back to 28. Since March 1, convention applications have been blocked or defeated in at least nine states.

“You can’t go on racking up this debt. It’s really, really hard to deal with,” Kasich said. “A balanced budget amendment forces Congress to make difficult decisions and it provides an excuse to members when they face pressure to spend. There’s got to be a willingness from both parties - particularly on the Republican side, now that they control everything.”

Among opponents fighting a balanced budget convention are groups as politically different as the John Birch Society and the League of Women Voters.

Lloyd Leonard, the league’s senior director advocacy, said a constitutional convention risks opening debate on abortion, guns, term limits, freedom of religion and even the existence of the federal government itself.

He said he’s surprised Kasich would admit to a balanced budget amendment’s role in providing political cover in Washington.

“I congratulate him on being so honest as to say this is a way to protect politicians,” Leonard said. His group believes a balanced budget amendment would have prevented the federal government from actions like the Recession-era stimulus package and auto industry rescue that helped states like Ohio through difficult economic times.

The John Birch Society calls a constitutional convention “a potentially disastrous event.”

“We don’t think that it’s possible to be sure it could be limited to one issue,” said Larry Greenley, the society’s director of missions. “We think it’s just a bad time to unleash something like that.”

Kasich joins those who reject the argument. He says a convention can be limited to the balanced budget issue, one which has now gained support in both Republican states like Ohio and Democratic ones like Maryland. Joining him in supporting the idea is the BBA Task Force and the American Legislative Exchange Council. A related Convention of States movement is also burgeoning around the country.

“When the national debt goes up, economic opportunity goes down. And when the debt goes down, opportunity improves,” Kasich said, distilling his position to its essence.

That notion is far from universally accepted, even as Republican President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are debating a federal budget that endorses deficits adding almost $10 trillion to the national debt over the coming decade.

The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, based in Washington, says exact balance of a federal budget is less important than keeping debt from growing faster than the economy. The center estimates balancing the budget within 10 years would require more than $6 trillion in program cuts or revenue increases.

Kasich governs a state whose budget must balance. He says it hasn’t been “chop, chop, chop,” but a balancing act of reining in spending - such as by privatizing one, not all, state prisons and getting the prisons out of the farming business.

His critics staunchly disagree with Kasich that his budgets haven’t taken a toll in areas - particularly for local governments and schools. Ohio teachers rallied just this week against proposed education cuts.

But Kasich says he’s taken the approach of remaining consistent and not playing favorites.

“You don’t make any friends. That’s why it’s so hard,” he said. “Because the people that come to see them act like they’re their friends, but these are temporary friendships. When you get into these jobs, you have to realize you have a job to do.”

So you would vote for Trump if you were convinced he would reduce the debt more than the other candidate?

No, because he has proven he can't and he won't.

Ok, what if he stepped down and Pence was the candidate? Would you vote for him or any other Republican who holds the line on other partisan issues in order to restructure/reduce debt?

Or would you vote for the Democrats despite them being the bigger spenders and deficit/debt sustainers?

There are tons of issues that need addressed, not just debt reduction.

Climate change, infrastructure, foreign policy, education, tax liabilities, sustainable GDP growth & economy, weapons reform, human/equal rights...

Can one individual check every single box off that's important to me? Nope. Not one single Republican OR Democrat can go it alone. That's why if you ask will I vote Republican...the answer is... I will vote for the BEST person for the job, REGARDLESS of political affirmation.

Trump isn't it.

Next...

Ok, but do you ever think about how ineffective Democrat/socialist polities are toward actually affecting the issues that concern you?

1) Climate change:
1) analyze how a carbon tax would cause growthists to trigger more carbon emissions in order to generate more government revenue and thus stimulate more GDP growth and social spending.
2) analyze how a green new deal would actually stimulate the economy and then ask yourself whether Democrats would/could actually control the economy so that people drive less and use less energy, shop less, etc. No, if the economy is growing, people will spend more, and then businesses will resist reforms by lobbying government to procrastinate real changes that would effect their business models.
3) Paris agreement or other international agreements only benefit wealthy countries that can afford to import more and thus shift production offshore, where industrialists will be taxed more for their emissions, which will stimulate them to produce and sell more to pay more taxes, and the tax revenues will benefit the wealthy countries that don't have to pay because they shifted their production to other countries.

infrastructure: To reform climate degradation and otherwise protect/preserve/restore the environment, pavement and sprawl have to be reduced. Democrats are right to promote alternative infrastructure and public transit, but they do so in a way that stimulates the economy and thus generates more jobs for people to buy and drive cars. So as long as Democrats push for higher wages, which allow people to afford driving, infrastructure projects are just going to add more pavement, clear more corridors, etc. If they would narrow roads and highways to add trains, that could be good, but they will spend so much on the projects that the resulting fiscal stimulus and jobs/wages will just promote more driving and the trains will only be used for tourism, just as bike/pedestrian infrastructure is only used (mostly) for recreational riding and few people actually commute/live totally by bicycle.

foreign policy: Tariffs are disliked by Democrats because Europe is socialist and Europe needs the US to trade openly with China so its investors can make huge money on global investments to fund their great pensions and other welfare programs there. Democrats won't speak fiscal discipline to global socialism because they don't want to upset the old world masters.

education: also used as a tool for economic stimulus, job-creation, and wage growth by Democrats. Do you like seeing education held hostage to economic demands?

tax liabilities: Democrats claim the rich should 'pay their fair share' because that's a common sense way of legitimating more spending, which inflates the economy with artificial growth that primarily benefits larger investors. The inflation cancels out the benefits for the middle-class and especially the lower middle-class and poor, who are hurt the most because they make and save money at the slowest rate.

sustainable GDP growth & economy: what makes an economy good? Growth of spending-driven dependency or price stability, which allows people to save for the future and relax regarding their future and the possibility of working less because their saved money retains more value for longer?

weapons reform: you can't convince people who want to defend themselves with guns that the government is to be trusted with gun regulation. Better to just accept their position and stop provoking them to double-down on defending their gun rights.

human/equal rights... The US is founded on the principle of fundamental equality and liberty and justice for all. The GOP is in no way opposed to that, and they distrust critics of the US who seem to be trying to undermine fundamental US principles of rights and equality to replace them with subtly-modified variations of those same principles that have radically different meanings in practice, such as 'equality of outcome,' which promotes socialism/redistribution and thus forced economic participation where equality is only supposed to mean equality of economic access.

By responding to all these concerns of yours, have I only convinced you that I am for the GOP that you despise, or can you see anything reasonable in anything I've said? If not, please respond and help me truly understand why you see these things differently. I want to understand how others think.


And why not Pence then? I asked this before, but maybe you forgot to respond to that aspect of my previous post.

The only thing you convinced me of is that you have absolutely no interest in actually discussing John Kasich. If you can't or won't stick to the thread's main premise, start another thread of your own.

Kasich should run as a Democrat within the Republican party since the people who are most likely to vote for him are tactical Democrats who want to split the Republican vote in order to win against Trump.

Democrats and Republicans who are more interested in political content than tactics would not be interested in Kasich as much as divisive Democrats. He may have a perspective on fiscal conservatism, but if he is really a Republican, he's aware that if the Democrats win by splitting the vote, that is not going to cause them to honor the fiscal conservatism that won them the election.

Once elected, they will just continue to pursue agendas that involve big government spending aimed ostensibly at positive social-economic change, but which actually stimulate the economic status quo while allowing business interests and the public to protect the industries that enable them to persist in climate unsustainability.