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We won the bet Tim, as per the original terms of the bet, but if we ever get paid remains to be seen. All the pundits are in agreement that Hillary has locked up the nomination, Obama stated that the race is over when he made his endorsement and even Bernie is not talking about the super delegates any more. It is over, it is a fait accompli.
Exactly. If I had been Jon mx I would have paid you the day of the endorsement, just as I sent $500 to tommyboy the day that Obama vetoed repealing Obamacare. I don't wait to pay my bets. I honor them.
No it hasn't. Our middle class is getting abused. It's pathetic Things may be "ok" today, but they could be much better and there's no question our representatives don't represent us. We aren't their primary focus when it comes to their decision making. I use our laws, tax code, the picking and choosing of winners/losers and trade agreements as a basis for this opinion.Commish you're far from a stupid guy. Why do you want to upend the status quo in this country so much? That seems to be the central theme in all of your political posts. Why is the status quo so bad? Hasnt it served us well since at least World War II?Keystone Cop betting (TM)
Trump gets more free advertising than anyone ever. Traditional $ values are less relevant me thinks.
And should have been from the beginning. We wouldn't have the choices of Hillary and Donald had they done their job. I know Tobias probably doesn't want to hear that, but it's true and part of the reason I'm not very fond of our media/press in general.
Bingo!!!!!!!!!!!
You guys should have specified the exact terms. I'd argue that Obama did endorse before the race was decided. It's still not decided, technically. If Hillary is indicted tomorrow, all the supers would go to Bernie.
Edit: I'd also argue that several people here suggested that you specify more exact terms, for exactly this reason...
i will pay if Hillary wins because that was the spirit of the bet. But if something happens to Hillary such as an indictment and Obama jumps in the middle of the race and tries to get Biden the nomination, then that throws the bet into a mess.
You guys should have specified the exact terms. I'd argue that Obama did endorse before the race was decided. It's still not decided, technically. If Hillary is indicted tomorrow, all the supers would go to Bernie.
Edit: I'd also argue that several people here suggested that you specify more exact terms, for exactly this reason...
Nixon broke his campaign promise to end the draft. Also, he was president during Woodstock, which was at the height of the anti-Vietnam movement in America.
it is a 900 page thread. and the search function is marvelous. probably in the 300-500 page range.
Yes and no. He promised to end the draft when he ran in 1968, but didn't end it until after he won reelection in 1972.
The Ali thread finally pushed Tim onto my ignore list. The board suddenly became a much more pleasant place to be...
Well Obama endorsed someone. So the bet has either been won or lost. You guys need to determine whether the race is over or not is all.
Yup. His defense of a rapist and characterization of the 13-year old whom Roman Polanski raped was what finally sealed the deal for me. It was a while ago, but I didn't learn about it until recently. Put everything into perspective from this self-described champion of women and children.
Sigh.
Tim, why don't you just admit that you reflexively vote for the worst the Democrats can find? It would make life so much easier!
It really doesn't, because Obama already endorsed Hillary. That's the point at which the bet ends.
Because I don't?Tim, why don't you just admit that you reflexively vote for the worst the Democrats can find? It would make life so much easier!
Wait, I must have missed this before. Tim, you bet that Obama would not veto the repeal of Obamacare?
I bet that he wouldn't have to, that the House and Senate couldn't get together to repeal it. I was close to winning that bet; it took them over a year just to agree on a resolution that was only for show.
Nixon sabotaged the Paris Peace talks in 1968 which would have ended the war. He instead kept the war going, expanded the war by bombing Laos and Cambodia, and cost more American lives. He got the same peace, ending the war in 1973, that was in our grasp in 1968. He was an awful, awful human being and an even worse president. Kissinger deserves to rot in hell when his time comes too. God willing it will be soon.
I will go ahead and pay this weekend. My only point was the same reason Bernie has not conceded yet. I don't think this is 100 percent won yet and there would still be a chance, albeit remote, that Obama sticks his fingers into the process. If the convention gets thrown into chaos (by an indictment, let's say) and Obama steps in and settles things by endorsing a candidate. You don't consider that even a possibility, so forget it. I am still hopeful that justice is served and Hillary is held accountable to the law.
That's an argument for claiming a win on the bet. Not an argument for postponing payment.
Exactly. The wording of the bet, if that is it above, is very ambiguous. You can absolutely make an argument for either side.
Given that it's "race is decided" I'd say the better argument is that Jon lost the bet. Hillary may not end up with the nomination, she had won enough pledged delegates and had enough pledged super delegates before Obama endorsed her. He waited until all the primaries had concluded, with the exception of the meaningless primary in DC.
See... You don't like either of my arguments, for or against jon_mx. All the more reason to say that the wording was ambiguous.
Just one more wrinkle to this - if you go back and look at the actual conversation the context was Biden getting in the race. So the *whole discussion was about if Biden got in the race would Obama endorse him over Hillary. Specifically Jon pointed out that Clinton endorsed Gore in December 1999 as basis for his reasoning.
But are you that upset at LBJ and JFK for escalating it in the first place? It sounds like JFK, LBJ, and Nixon all expanded the war when they could have pulled out instead. So why is it focused on Nixon?
It did start with Biden, but because of the way the bet was worded, Jon argued (correctly) that the bet was still valid if Obama endorsed ANYONE prior to the race being decided- which now would include if he endorsed Hillary as well as a way to help her beat Sanders. Also in a later post I pointed out that "the race being decided" meant that the winner had clinched, that there was no mathematical way anyone could catch the winner, and Jon agreed with this as well, so Rich is also wrong.
I was looking at the original quoted discussion. But OK if it's as you say it was a word trap then, if you want to hold him to that, fine. Basically at the time of the bet IMO he was arguing that Obama did not want to endorse Hillary and your interpretation requires that he was arguing that Obama did want to endorse Hillary.
Well, considering all democrat delegates can vote however they want, delegate or superdelegate, there is no time before the conclusion of the convention that would satisfy the wager for Tim. I seriously doubt that was the wager either of them had in mind.
Exactly. The discussion started with Obama endorsing Biden and at one time jon was willing to make that bet with me. However, my contention was that a sitting President will never endorse any candidate before the race is decided because he would not wish to alienate the supporters of the other candidates when the race was still contested.
Funny thing is, this point was specifically called out to him several times...the bet still went as worded. I personally don't have any problem with jon_mx position on this. I'd wait until the very end as well based on the verbiage in this thread.
This is the kind of substantive discussion they were looking for that should take precedent over email talks, character and judgment talks etc.
I could bring up Hillary's diet, and that would be more substantive than the emails. (actually it's probably the main subject of a lot of those- the ones that were deleted.)
