With the broad spectrum of Republican candidates, how did we end up with Trump and Clinton?

Well said!!!

You would have to have read the entire thread and followed along, LT. This is now days old. Battle's over.

LT Tom Baillie - Have no fear, sir... there WILL be others!!! You will not be left behind. ;)

MAJ Charles Blake - I do know a few people who, if not outright denying it, at least ignore it.

SGT David Commini - there's always a few in every crowd...

I agree with SGT David Commini.

Why are we so obsessed with the Clinton's? Our focus should be on the current president and his credentials, values and rhetoric.

I'm already stocked for it, good LTC. Costco had a sale on bourbon and that should see me through November

I'll provide a counter-narrative. I do agree that hyperpolarization is an issue, but the two extreme candidates both lost. Sanders and Cruz (in my opinion) represented the far ends of the political spectrum, and neither won their respective nomination. In contrast, both nominees are rather centric. Ultraliberals definitely aren't excited about Clinton, and ultraconservatives don't appear to be too excited about Trump. In fact, many of Trump's supporters are people who haven't even significantly participated in past elections. That's the main reason why Cruz, Priebus, etc., were all pondering how to close future GOP primaries to only registered Republicans. So, while polarization does exist, neither pole was able to push their agenda, and both poles appear to have waining influence with the parties. The result is that two centric candidates are all who remain, and the extremes have to pick from suboptimal candidates (therefore, the dissatisfaction with the choices). Of course, the Republicans will say that Hillary is a far-left liberal, but she's not. And, Democrats will say that Trump is a far-right conservative, but he's not. That's simply political rhetoric meant to influence centrist voters.

Great point

CPT Jack Durish or nominated over smoking pistols?
Is the process really that broken that of all the candidates, the loudest and rudest walks away with the nomination (in both parties)?

MAJ Charles Blake, I agree with CPT Jack Durish. I believe it is cause and effect, as mentioned by 1SG Patrick Burke and MCPO Roger Collins . Neither party can claim innocence in the root cause of Trump's success, their failures caused this IMHO. An HRC supporter I used to serve with sent me this to see if I thought it was an accurate assessment, and it appears to have some validity, based on the results so far.

SFC Richard Giles - Haha better raises for service members will always be nice. Considering what we had to deal with, will deal with, and do. But as far as term limits, these lifers will have another generation come behind them and do the same thing. It can't be stopped except by a president doing a vote for the people and passing an executive order saying term limits, the people want this. Try to defund it and see if you get elected. Short of that, I don't think it will ever happen. But then again what I propose may be too 'radical' and 'extreme'

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and say it'll happen. 1. Trump could care less about these politicians, all of them and I think has the balls to do something like this. Just think how good he'll look in the publics eyes if he does accomplish it. Maybe I'm thinking to high, I don't know.

Some of the things trump says need to be modified a tad. Stop Muslims from coming in the US. How about halt all tourism and visas for a while till we can sort out our national security problems. Like emails and other 'stuff' stuff containing VA...and deficient equipment from the military. I'm sure I don't need to keep listing. Build a wall...how about build a moat fill it with water and gaters. Alright, you got me I don't have any alrernatives for this one. But there is a wall, fence covering Mexico and US in some parts, how about patch that, put people to work fixing the damn thing? Look I just created jobs...onto creating jobs. Stop out sourcing customer service overseas...I mean that 3 second delay sucks. And their English is bad. I get better communication when they speak Spanish. We have tons of buildings that can be renovated in Louisiana to be call centers...allow gambling in all states...allow medicinal marijuana to be obtained in all states. Colorado didn't know what to do with all the 'weed' money. So they used it towards scholarships. Investing in education there...now I've never done weed and don't plan on it. But if you're not hurting anyone and you're home and not out and about. Idgaf...so many possible solutions. So little time and 'bipartisanship' I like how both sides use that word, and never agree on jack. But hey that's politics!

Essays. Love em

We already have 'term limits' but people keep re-electing these guys into office. What we need is the ability to conduct recall elections so when they don't do their jobs we can call them on it and bring another candidate into the mix and not have the election cycle prep/mud slinging able to influence the constituency.

Was in during Carter through Bush II, I can say without a doubt that I always put forth the constitution and what it meant above who the prez was at the time.

MCPO Roger Collins , yes so let me clarify. We had some very impressive candidates from all walks of like and all backgrounds. We had smart people, "liberal", conservative, more libertarian and even isolationist. All with bona findes that I think are better than Trump. Of course the voters speak and the process rolls, but how did we overlook such a wide field? What is behind the Trump phenomena?

I use myself as an example. Over the many years since Ronald Reagan, the politicians have promised to represent we the citizens and got elected over and over again. While enjoying their success through our hard earned incomes by confiscating it by way of taxes. There were a few candidates I would have preferred that fit the bill to break the paradigm, Cruz being one of them. By the time the bell rang, despite all that was against him, one remained standing. That's my reasoning. If anyone wants a candidate such as another Clinton, there's no explanation.

MAJ Charles Blake - Its the same phenomena that got this man elected as the governor of Minnesota. People are tired of career politicians and they appeal to brash persona who comes in and upsets the apple cart. Its a 'train wreck' mentality, cast a vote his way just to see what will happen next.

I agree

It is amazing that Clinton got as far as she did but I am not surprised since there is so much corruption in this country. It doesn't matter what party we are either. I rather have Trump than her though. I also like Mike Pence a lot. If he ran for President I would vote for Mike Pence in a heartbeat.