Anti-Trump Republican Launches Presidential Bid as an Independent

Evan McMullin, a former CIA officer, is a Republican who is running for president as an independent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/us/politics/evan-mcmullin-independent-candidate.html

I saw an interview of him on CNN. Summarily, he said that Clinton and Trump are dangerous for the country for different reasons. He called Trump inhuman, an authoritarian, and said that he doesn't care about anyone but himself. Currently, Georgia and Utah are red states that are in danger of being lost by the Republicans. When asked about possibly splitting the vote in Utah because he's Mormon and handing it to Clinton, McMullin stated that Trump is already losing badly to the weakest Democratic candidate in decades.

 

Well he's right that Hillary is easilly the worste candidate, certainly the worste I can recall. I don't even mean that in a partisan way. I can't believe either her or Trump are their party's candidate. Both tire incredible baggage, either offers anything decidedly good and decent.

If I thought there was a viable third choice I just might do it.

What the hell have we done?

 

As far as the Trump phenomenon, that was 100% created by Washington. People are pissed off about the status quo, everything is a deal, good old boy's club, and have had enough.

 

Oh I'm right there with you. I wish Trump were about 10 years younger. I think he's gotten kinda slow on the uptake. I don't know if this translates to dementia but I worry that the indicators are there. I would be ok with Pence so if Donald goes completely crazy the fall back is ok...even if a bit to far to the middle.T rump needs to just STFU, stop taking the bait, act presidential.

My earlier statement included "viable" no one will even come close with just 90 days till election.

Trump could be straight up dead and I'd cast for him over the abomination.

 

Why does Trump need to do that? Acting like a jackass scored him the Republican nomination. Clearly his asshattery appeals to a significant enough portion of the GOP voting base for it to be a positive.

I'm not saying the majority of Republicans are stupid. But Trump's antics have proven that they are effective in motivating pissed off people to vote. He's also turned off a number in his own party. Suggesting he needs to "act presidential" when not acting presidential caused him to defeat a slate of candidates (many of whom acted very presidential) seems like an odd position to take. It's like saying Bob Dylan "needs" to get a haircut and start playing techno.

 

Acting like a deranged idiot got him the Republican nomination, but it may or may not work with the general public. He's polling terribly with minorities, and I don't expect his support there to increase. He's not polling well right now with college-educated white women, and that's a demographic Mitt Romney won. It's going to be very hard for him to when the general election with just the votes of angry white men. Even if you ignore the craziness, some of his economic policies aren't even conservative. He is the worst Republican presidential candidate I have seen in my lifetime. I take that back. He is the worst presidential candidate from a major party that I have seen in my lifetime. I'm only saying that because I can't recall all of the Green Party and Libertarian Party candidates, but I doubt they were worse than him.

 

Trump has yet to lie about playing footloose and fancy free with classified documents, Trump has yet to abandon his own ambassador in Libya and blame it on an obscure internet video. Hillary is, by far, a worse candidate than Trump. It's not even close. We think Trump may be bad but we know Hillary is.

.....Trump will probably just whoop Obama's record of playing golf and leave the governing to Pence, Giuliani, and Newt. We will probably only see him when there is grandstanding to be done.

 

That's about it. The status quo must eventually have us as Venezuela Norte.

Who else but Trump might attempt the 'fundamental change' we truly need? Cruz, perhaps, but his potential effectiveness was doubtful.

I've never liked Trump but he may just be the tonic we need.

 

Well, Trump has never had classified documents. That's a bit like me saying "Well, I've never bankrupted a casino." That's true. But I've never run a casino. I've also never driven a tractor trailer unsafely or botched a heart operation.

That doesn't mean I can drive a tractor trailer well or that I am in any way qualified to perform heart surgery.

The Secretary of State is a political appointee. The office holder typically changes out every four to eight years.

Yet, the Department of State, like all US departments, continue to function. The Secretary of a given department is tasked, first and foremost, with imposing their administration's initiatives. The day-to-day typically falls to career civil service.

The idea that increased security at a single embassy was under the personal discretion of the Secretary is silly.

I'm sure there are a lot of embassies asking for a lot of things security among them. And I'm also sure that these do not always get honored. The largest request was for 12 new security agents. We're not talking about a small army here. And embassy guards don't leave the embassy. You know...international incident and such.

So if you feel that 12 additional guards would have really made the difference please provide some manner of support for that argument. An assessment. The opinion of someone who was there.

Embassies are big places. I've been to a few. Adding 12 people to the security team is unlikely to mean the difference between life and death.

He might beat him for golf games but Obama took significantly fewer vacation days than Bush.

So the real achievement would be if Trump could possibly President less than George Bush was able to.

 

I get it man, Hillary at all cost, just apologize for her failures while espousing the silly idea that she wasn't in any way responsible. OK

And yes, 12 guys might well have made the difference...and standing down the 10th Mountain probably did make a difference. You should concentrate on another apology strategy...Benghazi is a loser for Clinton, best you close the curtain than try and pretend she had no role in it. Defend, deflect, ignore. Got it.

 

Please let it be so. Maybe he can finish killing the Republican party off.

 

You Dem's are in good company: Orlando shooter's father attends Hillary Clinton rally in Kissimmee - wptv.com

 

I'm not a fan of Hillary, so nice try with the "Hillary at all cost" punt.

If you think that the Secretary of State has the authority to "stand down" any Army Unit it then you really need to revisit civics.

The email scandal is bogus. Benghazi, while tragic, is a really weak and sad attempt by the Republicans to try to demonize a popular candidate. It's fine if you believe it. But objective people see it for the farce that it is.

That doesn't mean Hillary is good. It just means the republicans are alienating people at an alarming rate.

 

So who has overall responsibility for Embassy Security...do you think Obama does that? If not the Secretary of State then who is responsible? Further, once the attack popped off who would Obama turn to for details and recommendation of next moves? She was the sitting Sec State, this is in her lap no matter how much you want to wish it away.

Civics lesson 1: "Serves as the President's principal adviser on U.S. foreign policy;", "Ensures the protection of the U.S. Government to American citizens, property, and interests in foreign countries;", "Supervises the Foreign Service of the United States.", Duties of the Secretary of State of the United States

But keep talking about it...might be our best hope to prevent the growth of activist Supreme Court Justices and fundamental changes to the laws and rights we have enjoyed for over 200 years.

 

Interesting take I hadn't thought of.

 

I don't think that's an outlandish assessment of what may be occurring behind the scenes.

It could also be somewhat more innocuous (i.e. he wants to use this as a publicity boost and parlay the doomed Presidential bid into a future run for another office). Though I suppose those two possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

His background is interesting if somewhat low level. If he was running for Congress I'd say he might be a force to be reckoned with. Who knows? Maybe in a few years he will have the necessary patina to be considered for the Oval Office.

But I agree that his candidacy seems oddly out of place and hurting Johnson does seem like a reasonable conclusion to draw. I think the big anti-Trump donors can think of only one thing worse than a Trump presidency; a third party win by a Libertarian.

 

The Secretary of State is responsible for all U.S. diplomats. This is true. But what you are trying to do is draw that line of responsibility into culpability for an action that was beyond her control. I'd think you were being ridiculous no matter what the party affiliation was. Intelligence gets analyzed and actions are weighed against it.

But, as I've said to Bruce regarding the email scandal, I notice that when it comes to Hillary it's a very decisive answer yet when the exact same thing was done by members of the Bush Administration, well, that was A-OK.

It's really simple. Either we accept that when incomplete intelligence arrives sometimes something will slip through the cracks that causes a loss of life. The government cannot act on every possible threat because of limited resources.

Or we decide we are going to hold the political appointee in office at the time personally accountable for that loss of life.

If you choose the latter then I cannot imagine how you are not calling for an equal number of inquiries and investigations into Condoleeza Rice. Are the deaths of a few Americans more relevant than the deaths of thousands only because its an election year?

 

The biggest difference between Bush and Clinton is the simple fact that he isn't running for election, Hillary is. We have historical evidence of her unsuitability for the job....this is ignored, that's my problem.

 

So you're OK with American lives being lost as long as Rice isn't running for office? OK, gotcha. That 9/11 was potentially preventable bothers you not in the least bit. I understand that. I mean, after the death count rises above 1,000 it's really more of a statistic than anything else, amirite?

That isn't a "big difference" and it's the fundamental flaw with Bruce's argument that Karl Rove deleting millions of presidential emails is OK but Hillary doing so is not. It shouldn't matter if a person is running for higher office. Either deleting the emails or ignoring the intelligence is wrong or it isn't. If Hillary Clinton has the death of a U.S. Ambassador on her conscience then Condoleeza Rice should have the deaths of every single 9/11 victim on her conscience. Or, we acknowledge that these lapses are not the personal fault of the individual who was tasked with overseeing those things.

Because, you see, Rice didn't run for office. But Bush did. He ran for re-election and won, in part, because of how amazingly 'Merican he looked after 9/11 despite the fact that his National Security Advisor was briefed in July 2001 about a pending attack on U.S. soil and she said "Nah, we're good."

If you think that being culpable in the deaths of Americans merely makes one unqualified for a higher level job then you have an incredibly sick sense of culpability.

But you don't have a sick sense of culpability. What you have is a blinding hatred of Hillary that no amount of fact or objective reasoning will ever crack. That's fine. You are free to vote as ignorantly as you see fit. The fact is that you fell in for marketing and absolutely nothing more. So, instead of voting for a career politician you're going to vote for a spoiled rich kid who played with daddy's money and was able to drive a casino into the ground and have the taxpayers wash away the debt. Yeah, he sounds hella qualified to me.

But hey, Clinton is no treat. I think that any Washington insider is the exact opposite of what we need. But we also don't need a narcissistic hotel developer who gets a kick out of saying the most sensational things he can get away with. I think the Trump University scandal is largely bunk. But I also think that every supposed scandal for Hillary (during this election) has been bunk as well. Let's see, we went through an email scandal (that wasn't a scandal when her predecessory did the same thing [she even based her server off of his]). We did this Benghazi tango which went nowhere. Oh, and my personal favorite was the trying to demonize her for having represented a rapist when she was a court appointed attorney.

Look, hate Hillary. Don't vote for Hillary. But inventing scandals is just asinine. It's asinine when we do it to Hillary. It's asinine when we do it to Trump.