Planet America Tonight

Warrigal

Warrigal

SF VIP
Location
Sydney, Australia
I nearly decided to post this in entertainment but I think it fits better here.

One way we Australians are able to (almost) understand the US political system is through a little program called Planet America which involves a couple of polliwonks talking about the presidential elections every 4 years.

Although it is still a bit early there will be a Planet America special edition tonight and I'm hoping that I will gain insight into the early field of candidates lining up for the Republicans and the Democrats.

In particular I'm curious about Ben Carson. I heard a bit about him on the radio this afternoon about his story about his past which is being challenged (see first link) and now I have just discovered this article where he says that the pyramids were built by Joseph to store grain and never meant to be a tombs for pharaohs (second link).

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/05/politics/ben-carson-response-violent-past/

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-not-pharoahs-tombs?google_editors_picks=true

Is he considered a serious candidate ? I think he sounds a bit wacky.

Any way I'll report back on anything I glean from Planet America and you can all correct any false impressions.
 

I believe Carson is leading Trump in the polls.

Not that I pay any attention to that stuff ....

But Carson has said some things I totally agree with - given, of course, that he's a politician and you can't trust what they say.
 
Well, the one thing I know he mentioned was after one of our numerous school shootings here recently. Being the kind of person I am, I totally agreed with his comment to the effect that "if I had been there I would have fought back, not just cowered beneath a table" (can't attest to the accuracy of that quote, it's just how I remember it).

Also, I admire that he was born poor in Detroit, Michigan but under his own strength of will attended Yale (majoring in Pysch, one of my favorite subject!) and was a premier neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Institute.

Just for his life achievements I respect the man, but some of the things he's said recently just seem to sound okay to me.
 
The general consensus was that Hillary will win the Dem primaries and an outsider will win the Republican nomination - Cruz or Rubio but Jeb Bush has all the money.
Hilary is thought to have the better campaign organised for the early state primaries.
It wasn't all that informative though.
 
Warri, being in the UK I probably get the same amount of news on the candidates as you. I get most of the updates on this forum and on links to articles on Facebook. At this point BBC etc aren't saying very much, too early since the election is a year away.

I know that Trump and Carson are idiots. And the rest of the repubs all seem to have said many totally stupid and unbelievable things. I'll never understand why any women, gays, minorities, poor people would ever vote repub.
 
Warrigal, far too much of what is going on is just speculation. Come about April most of this speculation will be gone and we can then decide who will be the most likely candidate for each party.

Far too many running on the Republican side and not enough on the Democrat side. Hillary is still under the FBI eye for security reasons. Hopefully by April that will all be cleared up. It will remain a question till the FBI does its thing.
 
Yes Bob, at this stage it is all speculation over here. I tuned in to the TV session Planet America because I am unfamiliar with the majority of the potential candidates and I was hoping to learn about the field. I'm still mostly in the dark but I think I can follow the campaigns better now and also the threads on this forum.
 

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