If Presidential Candidates Were Sailors...

If Presidential candidates were sailors, what would they be sailing???

Feel free to be humorous, insulting, annoying, or intelligently clever, or even pleasantly kind and upbeat,...BUT YOUR COMMENTS MUST BE SAILING ORIENTED AND USE SAILING REFERENCES!!!

(This is flame bait. You might want to turn back, now!)

Let the entertainment begin...

You won't find many cat sailing presidents like JFK

Not sailing related but IMHO it cant get better than this anyway (Make sure you turn the sound on):
https://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/704896063438774272

Yeah. It's ofcourse throwing a bone in the doghouse; but who the f... is this Trump-person??????

For us here in Europe, its unimaginably that this moron collects so many votes.

Can you really imagine him as acting president??????

Is it really though? We have a clown leading the polls as well (the white haired idiot).

Nice to see you folks have it all figured out,LOL

Dutch News ( if you care )

touché

Seriously though, I'm interested in the pro-animal PvdD party. Do these people eat animals or don't eat animals or do they party like animals?

Well, they started as a one-chambermember party who's only interest was defending animal interests. But now they have extended their scope to a sort of nature-party (saving the world).
That looks nice ofcourse, but they tend to make a religion of that.

Our problem here in Holland is indeed that we have so much small political partys that the actual formed government after the election often is infact a mess.
Moreover because the Representatives and the Senate mostly have different partys distribution.

So, I'm intrigued by your political system in which it always turns out to the battle between Democrats and Republicans.

Compared to my country this process in the US of the formation of a new government looks more simple and straight forward.
But IMHO, what is happening now with these two candidates, shows me an unexpected downside of this sytem.

While the US political process is technically "open" (there are other political parties such as Libertarian, Federalist, socialist, Tea-party, etc), the actual means to conduct the selection process is pretty much closed to all but the two major political parties (Republican & Democrat).

There are requirements to get on the election ballot which can be parlayed to get people promoted, but the electoral college system tends to align with one of the two parties.

If I recall my grade-school civics correctly, the electoral college actually elects the President. These "delegates" are selected to represent the voters of that particular state (although they could remain undecided or cast a vote in opposition to the popular vote)

I think there was a brush-up in the Bush/Gore presidential in 2008? election having to do with the electoral college because the popular vote was so close in numbers. There was another president earlier (Taft?) elected by the college contrary to the popular vote tabulation...

You politicos correct my fuzzy memory please....

Bah. yeah. Your choice is a really small choice of candidates and a dysfunctional government or a wide choice of candidates and a dysfunctional government.

IMHO, our biggest problem is that it takes a ton of money to get elected and then those that are elected act in favor of those that gave them money (otherwise, they don't get the money and don't get elected next time). "Freewill" of the people in the modern democracy is somewhat of an illusion - and then sometimes the freewill of the people can be pretty shocking. I'm not sure which is worse sometimes. We can depend on the people with the money to act in their own best interest...

as Tip O'Neill said... all politics is local.

Most people are only concerned with the things that affect them directly. Therefore they are focused more on the local issues (like fire protection or local security) than something more complex or futuristic (say, the collapse of social security)

We (as a broad-stroke generalization) may "hate" a particular POTUS but we respect the institution/office. Seems we also seem to like our locally elected representatives (who serve in Congress, which we somehow "hate")... very confusing sometimes...

Back to the original question....

Clinton would most likely sail a pirate ship. You don't know where she is, she'd lie about it anyways even if she told you. Chances are she'll blow up. The logs would be deleted. Clearly. Bill would be caught banging everything on board. Everything.

Trump, I'm not sure, is there an equivilent to a clown car in the sailing world? He's floating around where ever there are cameras to pay attention to his stupidity. The boat is equipped with the loudest stereo ever. Surfers like it since even when moored it makes a wake just from the BS spewing over the speakers.

Rubio, Noah's Ark, that butt clown thinks he was sent by god anyways. He's just sailing in circles, hoping to get noticed. Counter clockwise circles for some reason.

Sanders would be on a pink Sunfish, with unicorns, rainbows, and a menorah shooting free sh!t into the air. His course is set on La La Land.

Cruz is sailing a Viking ship. When he comes over the horizon, nothing good is coming. He's from a strange land, so nothing he says even makes sense anyways. Chances are the dragging the dock as it is still tied to the boat, but he did remove his beach wheels.... Jake.

Jeb is paddling a beat up canoe, just outside of Midland Texas. There's no water, which is actually lucky since it'd sink in a matter of minutes anyways.





This is one scary election cycle. No matter who wins, we lose.

Boat equivalent of a clown car is a McGregor.

Haha! Win!

+1! Sanders on a pink sunfish and Trump on a McGregor. That's gold.

Never under-estimate your opponent......

Staying with the theme and the spin that comes with political elections... yes that is MacGregor, the rest is heavily exagerated.

After last night's debate Trump would claim he has the biggest boat.

lol! Those definitely are not 18 foot seas and it certainly isn't 50 mph breeze. ;-)

Marketing at its best.

Jake, while I agree with what you stated here;

Trump is using his own money, not any donors, etc.
You knew that, right?

Our system is co corrupt- if Billary were a Repo- she would already have been tried and in jail. But because she's a Demo-
with the intelligence of our voting public- she'll probably win.
4-8 more years-
of striving for mediocrity.

And- to stay in the theme-
Billary would be sailing a Wave. (Lacks performance, very forgiving hulls, Sunfish style rigging, etc.)
Ted would be on a N20 with flight control (precise skippering)
and Donald would be on a SC22. (It's going to be great)
Marco would be on a H18magnum. (Solid, with the wings to taunt others boats from)
Bernie would be on a Sunfish (Well, it's a sailboat- and the only one everyone should have; or course- it'll be free!)

And it kills me when those from other countries think by getting their slive of the media- they act as if they no amnything about a candidate overseas.
TonyF18- would be sailing 2-up, with Bernie on his Sunfish!

Don't kill yourself Todd.

In this time of internet we, I, can read in fact all the same media which you have in the US. Not media slives.

It's only the slang: "they no amnything" which I have difficulty with to understand. And ofcourse the endless number of abbreviations like TLC, BS, etc.
(I recently detected a special site for that: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=calling+bs )

But what I do miss, is the actual physical US-environment, people talking in the street, buildings, actual US-living. So the interpretation and validation of all this US media news is tricky for me. Hence my posts.

Todd, you are an outspoken right-wing man on a forum which has probably a majority of Demos. So I guess each election time is a hard(ish) time for you.

Cheer up.

"Todd, you are an outspoken right-wing man on a forum which has probably a majority of Demos. So I guess each election time is a hard(ish) time for you."

I believe you are way off about the majority. It would be interesting to know how you determined your assertion.

That's an interesting issue, you mention here Rick.

Must confess it was an assumption, based on intuition combined with reading the forumposts for almost 7 years.
You say,I'm way off, so that makes me really wonder about the actual division.

Don't dare to ask, but a poll on this forum would be interesting.
Though it would be totally wrong. (Politics, but also religion and everything regarding sex are touchy subjects).

I'm quite sure that at least regarding these last matters, there is a difference in openness between the Netherlands and the US.

Agree with Rick, this is a very right leaning forum. The demographic here is old, white and male, not much diversity, old white guys tend be very republican or whatever Trump is.

That's kinda hard to assess though, isn't it? The right tends to shout a lot louder, with a good bit more anger, and it makes them seem like there are more of them.

And Trump? Authoritarian. I've been reading a good bit of political science research on how Authoritarianism has been on the rise in the US. Historically speaking, when you bring together a series of social changes (health care, LBGT rights, etc.) and physical threats (terrorism) you see a rise in authoritarianism. The physical threat aspect can make people that don't naturally lean toward authoritarian to trend strongly in that direction. There are several examples of it in history around the world. Since the democratic party redefined itself as a party of social change back in the 70's, most of the authoritarianist shuffled toward the republican side and they're starting to define that group now that they've been ignited by the recent factors I listed above. The fear mongering trend has also given rise to that group as well. There's a bit of irony in that when Cruz and Rubio (and Fox News) do anything like fear mongering, they're actually inciting people toward an authoritarian figure like Trump.

Agree point one! Point two, I'm going sailing, this potential reality is making me anxious.

Where have you been Todd? Wandering the Walmart tunnels? Did you get a t-shirt for your troubles?

Groan.

The republican party is on the right? When did that happen? Last I knew they loved wasting money.

THey all do

Best line I ever heard, "A Republican is just a Democrat....with a JOB!"

Once you start paying taxes, in ever increasing amounts, and see a whole bunch of -non- tax payers sitting around getting free stuff, while you bust your butt to pay for it, all of a sudden, free stuff isn't so free. Why are people who do not pay any income tax, allowed to vote for someone who promises them more free stuff? Back in the beginning, you had to be a land owner to vote. Now over 50% of voters don't even pay income tax!

A long time ago I read a really funny (in a sad way) book called Parliament of Whores, by PJ O'Rourke. Very good look at how American politicians are 'paid' by the lobbies. And another good book about American politics, by Lou Dobbs, "Independents Day", goes deep into how much money is flying around in DC, paying our politicians millions from the 42,000 registered lobby groups. And that's just the registered groups.

This may be the first year I don't bother wasting my time to vote. I can't support either Trump or Hillary. It's pretty sad that in this great country, those two are the 'Best we can do'.

Why do some people open a position intended to persuade/inform with an insult? Is to make sure only like minded individuals read your post?

+1 maybe 12 ft seas.. At 50kt winds, it's more of a white squall, no?

Looks like reaching with a deep reef main and rolled up jib... Maybe 25 kts?

To Ronald's point I don't hear much "talk on the street" about politics.

Sure, there are some folk who love to talk about it to anyone who will listen, but some decorum still lingers in society that limits this for the most part.

The media tends toward the sensational, thereby forcing those who wish to gain media attention to become "sensational". Those pragmatic, collaborative, and open-minded candidates quickly get marginalized because it just doesn't make for good TV.

Very similar to the developments in "reality" TV. Take "the Bachelor" as an extreme example. Originally this show paid counselors and psychologists to evaluate the candidates prior to their appearance as contestants to determine their ability to deal with the various challenges (notoriety ,failure on the national scene, etc). They actually weeded out those with mental conditions that were deemed too extreme.

Now, those same TV producers actually review the evaluations and SELECT those candidates the professionals deemed unacceptable (violent tempers, vindictive behavior, binge personalities, OCD types) because it draws way more viewers.

In a final opinion of the irony, most realistic citizens choose NOT to run for political office for the very reasons they complain is wrong with the current system... We all want an "outsider" who won't pander to the rich... Well, the rich are putting an "insider" in the mix who is going to bury that outsider...

That's like asking for a PRO who's never judged your fleet and seen the (legal) tricks that some use to gain... We all shun the "snake in the grass" but we want one on our side when it comes to getting stuff done.

Watch that Netflix "House of Cards" series. It really looks believable.

Butthurt, table for one?

I have Hillary sailing a Submarine. Torpedoing anything in her way and hiding from the consequences.

Trump on the Maltese Falcon because it's "Huge".

Bernie will be on what ever boat he could borrow for the weekend.

Wait, if we're socialist, then isn't every boat for everyone? So he technically won't have to "borrow" one?

I picture Donald Trump sailing a Snark. He keeps it at his private island (frequented by the Jubjub and the Bandersnatch) and eats lobster while talking in contemptuous tones of the sharks.

Bernie Sanders sails a 420 named "Smokin'". He promises everybody one of their very own along with lifetime free sailing classes - with no plan whatsoever to find instructors or pay for it.

If Hillary Clinton had her way, she'd confiscate all the Gunboats and restrict their use to government and law enforcement personnel only. Her private G4 would be piloted by her Secret Service detail and she'd sip martinis while foiling to her next Wall Street speaking engagement.

Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich repeatedly splash each other with oars; fall in the water; snag on trees; run aground on sandbars; and get stuck between locks as the three men attempt to row a pram up the Thames - to say nothing of the dog.

The way this election is shaping up -- I wish "none of the above" was a choice on the ballot.

Nope, sometimes a question is just a question Karl. I know you insult for your own amusement and you couldn't care less if your message is heard so I get you. Tim on the other hand, he wants to be heard.

This is FAR from the first time there have been no good choices in our presidential elections. It's our "duty" to vote, but when we're given no good choices, we're kind of stuck.

As for whether we openly discuss politics in this country: I have observed that healthy debate amongst friends is acceptable, just be aware that you may strike a nerve, and you probably want to avoid open discussions at work or in a bar (so as to avoid unintended consequences from passers-by). Most of us here are friendly enough to discuss, or wise enough to abstain.



Hey, a sailing-related reference. Only, I can't follow the logic. PROs run races, judges run protests. Not sure how an outsider PRO (or judge, for that matter) makes your point. Or, am I completely lost?

Mike

This one is especially bad, they're all just horrible people or just plain moronic. Some are both.

I stopped voting against candidates a while ago. Which means I wouldn't vote for Romney just because I don't want Obama to win. Instead I'd vote for Gary Johnson. I'm in the minority on that for sure, but I think it'd be a different world if people weren't so hung up on voting for a party.

I've said this before a z zillion times, doing away with payroll withholding and forcing people to actually write a check out for their taxes would drastically change their involvement. That's also precisely why it won't happen.

Fourteen years ago a lot of people in Holland were fed up with the governments based on pacts between 4 or 5 different polical partys.
There was even a name for that sort of coalition governments. They were called "purple". However people started to complain more and more about the ruins that this establishment created. Finally it ended up in despair and powerlessness feeling of the voters.

Then a remarkable man stood up (Pim Fortuyn) in the political scene. A fat lot of political laws and manners he cared! He was very well-spoken, eloquent, and he picked a quarrel with the whole press media and with every other political leader!
Took political incorrect points of view, was racistic and offended openly women. (exactly like Trump, but more civilized, certainly not moronoic)

But boy, what a succes he had, people adored him . He was way ahead of all the other partys in the polls . He gave people hope and they felt represented by him.

It still is a pity that, at his height, he was murdered just before the election date, in the street. Shot by a fanatic milieu- activist. His murderer has just become free these days and is walking total free on the street, even giving interviews.

But we will never know what our country would have looked like nowadays, if Pim Fortuyn was elected.

With me, a lot of people in Holland believe that he was assassinated by secret orders of that establishment!

Almost Prophetic

Dave, it was not meant as an insult, just an observation, sorry you took it that way. I know I was a lot more left leaning before my taxes went up!

To be clear, I am neither a republican or democrat, both parties are too extreme, Right and Left, for me.

I have always been an independent and I've always voted for which ever party's candidate I think will do the best job for Americans re jobs/economy/defense.

Unfortunately, this time around I doubt that either choice will be good for America, so I may sit this one out.

Trump talks a lot of smack but he's just a blowhard. Did you see the John Oliver piece on him recently? I'll try to post a link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGc2nN9OguQ

And I wouldn't trust Hillary (or Bill!) as far as I could throw her fat, Wall Street funded, lying butt. I could -almost- get behind Bernie, but for all the free stuff he wants me to pay for... again!

(I've already paid for my 4 years of college and all 4 of my kid's 4 years of college, now he wants me to pay for -all- kid's college?)

You're right. I should have used the term "judge" rather than PRO.

If a judge isn't used to the tricks a particular fleet can pull they won't always be looking for those offenders... I'm sure there are many tricks out there, but maybe "pumping" in a laser fleet would be an example. If I was a judge coming out of another discipline (maybe Stars), I might not immediately recognize the pumping offense and therefore some offenders may get away with it...

Or am I way off base trying to paint my analogy?

Well, you kinda have to in FL if you want to vote. It's a "closed primary" state whereby if you are not registered with a party, you can't vote IN PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES (like no candidate from NPA is running)

So all those yoots who registered NPA (no party affiliation) can't walk into the PPP (presidential preference primary) this Tuesday in FL and expect to see a ballot with Hillary, Bernie, The Don, Marco/Polo, Teddy and the rest.

The NPA ballot will only show some non-partisan county election/ballot question stuff.

So, Karl, they made the sausage pretty tough to swallow here in the sunshine state. kind of like the political mafia.

I would estimate many folk are "issue" voters rather than "party" voters. But you have to know how the game works to be effective. So if you switched to NPA, you could box yourself out of the chance to promote a candidate you share SOME views with in lieu of getting presented with a candidate you share NO views with...

3500 years ago, Hammurabi attempted to develop a system by which the "powerful" did not harm the weak. I think we're still trying to make that ideal system work. We're just not very good at it.

I think we should just tax jet pilot horse-owners. and buy foiling G4s for everyone.

OK, I'm with you on the sailing part (although now you're now talking about umpires, which are a different animal).

Anyway, how does this tie back to the political point you were trying to make? Are you saying the rich guys want the outsiders who don't know what to look for, or the insiders who will look the other way?

Mike

I voted for an outsider, wasn't concerned at all about it. Though my choice had no political experience, he had (in my mind) good judgement. I feel that is more important than say 20 years of living off the taxpayers dime.


I think Trump is a joke, and I think calling him a true political outsider is a bit of a stretch. I do not see a public servant in him at all. I am in the large group that will be REALLY REALLY REALLY torn if it comes down to trump and Hilary.

We are getting bombarded with mud slinging adds down here in FL now that the FL Primary is quickly approaching, and phone calls from pollsters as well. I've never been able to vote in a FL Primary because I'm not registered as either D or R, not that the primary matters at all. Looks like it's going to be Trump V Hillary, unless Trump strokes out or Hillary gets arrested. A sad day for America.

Oh, and Ronald, that's quite a story about Pim getting shot before getting elected, I'd guess the shooting was set up by the establishment too!

Ronald,

we who are not immersed in US society easily misunderstand or mis-apply when comparing our values and political beliefs to the US. Even though we are cultural cousins and friends - their culture is quite a bit different from european, dutch or norwegian culture.


Conservative or right leaning politics in the US is a wholly different game than norwegian conservative. Our right wingers take positions on the utter left wing of the democrats from what I (mis)understand.


Trump is a very interesting case. Sharing borders with Russia tends to make norwegians quite interested in NATO. Trump seems to have some thoughts on NATO which can change our borders and definately our budgets. I'll probably be conscripted from 5 days of annual service to who knows how many annual days in fatigues if he is elected president.

What remains to be seen is the real impact of an eventual Trump presidency. Even the president of the USA is limited by laws, senate, congress and political/economical supporters. Executive powers are overrated.



Trump would be sailing a chromed 200 feet Gunboat surrounded by TV crews of course. Media coverage is everything as Trump knows very well.

Hillary would not be sailing at all - but as a PR stunt she would go aboard a replica of the Mayflower with a colored crew. I dont think there is anything she would not do to gather votes?



Otherwise I think this terms primaries are all to focused on sinking ships, as usual.

My impression of Trump is, he really doesn't know much about anything. What he does know is, he's not too bright, certainly not on foreign affairs, but as he himself said when questioned on it, "I'll hire the best and brightest." That's his plan. Get someone else to do it. Someone much smarter than he is, hire an expert. Nothing wrong with that, at least he admits it. But he's used to just waving his hand in the air and all his employees jump up and get it done, or... "You're FIRED!".

That only works in the business world, where the CEO is the 'King'. It doesn't work in our Congress and Senate. He cannot fire any of them. So how's he plan to implement any of his sky hi promises, if he just pisses off 50% of the people he needs to vote Yes on some of this stuff?

First, I think Trump is probably pretty smart. Its his motivations that I find problematic.

I do not believe that a president needs to be an expert on everything, no one can be. I think a good presidents surrounds himself in advisers who are experts in a given field. The president then makes decisions from the information presented to him by his advisers.

Mmmmyeah, I get that, but all his "I'm going to build a 10' wall and get Mexico to pay for it!" rhetoric is getting old.

Yeah, sure you are.

And then the drug cartels will just get an 11' ladder or tunnel under it, like they've been doing for years. Trump you're an idiot!

What they should do is have the military set up a drone patrol just like over Afghanistan, with rockets, and blast anyone who enters the 'Death Zone' which would be about a 5 mile wide swath along the boarder, too far to tunnel under. Take out a few drug convoys and that stuff will stop pretty quickly.

Of course they'll always be smuggling people and drugs in trucks...which make excellent target practice for A10's!

Huh, seems like I heard that something like that happened somewhere in history over there in Europe. I wonder how that turned out?

they would all be on Chinese junks.
because they are junk bs talkers.
When have any of the talking points before an election ever been acted upon once the election is over? i mean "they" are going blow your brains out in public if you don't do what "they" tell you, if you are POTUS.

The cayotes will just charge more and fly them to Canada where they can cross freely... or we'll have to build a 10' wall across that border too?

Or they can just sail them off the coast of Brownsville, TX up until there is a quiet beach and dump them off...

I posit that the walls around Israel/Palestine have done a LITTLE to stem all the nonsense over there (tunnels, ladders, corrupt checkpoint folk) but have not really eliminated the problem.

And for the economic migrants, I can almost understand why they'd risk it to earn 10x as much as they could in the US (and send it back so when they return they can retire).

It is sad that our immigration policy is so restricted they have to consider illegal crossing (which bars them from free travel back and forth so they're stuck in the US if they cross successfully).

Would you rather have a bunch of illegal immigrants stuck in the US ( and collect social benefits - housing assistance, SNAP, etc) or "green-card" migrants who can leave when they're done with the work? I believe the green-card folk have to pay taxes, don't get Social Security, and have to return to their home country in order to renew the permit.

I want a President who builds an executive cabinet of folk who can outsmart every snake-in-the-grass... both foreign and domestic.

The POTUS can set the Congressional agenda and in some cases use Executive Authority, but it's the House and Senate (and sometimes the SC) that really make the sausage smell bad...

I bought a car from a older man who migrated here from Belarus in the early 90's. He owns a couple small businesses around town. Anyways, he was excited that his brother had finally secured paperwork to migrate to the USA legally. He had been waiting 12 YEARS on it.