Mark my words a vote for Hillary is a vote for war.[0]
[0]https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/04/01/19496/defense-con...
The politician will feel that she maintains neutrality, and is making decisions for herself (not influenced by money), but since she has only heard one side of the story, she is likely to choose in that direction.
Similarly, if someone says to you, "hey, I have a problem, can you help me?" then you will probably help them if it's not too much trouble. Politicians are the same, except it costs $400k to be able to tell them that. And then the politician feels good that they have helped someone.
[0] http://www.npr.org/2015/12/23/460762853/how-hillary-clinton-... [1] http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/08/another-day-an...
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/07/politics/john-kasich-donald-tr...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/07/20/trump_repo...
You might reasonably expect that Pence was made a similar offer. If that's how it played out, you could probably expect a relatively vanilla foreign policy from Pence.
The problem is there's no guarantee that's how it would play out; Trump is narcissistic and unstable. He might actually intend to do that until Pence does something he doesn't like, and then Trump takes the reins back.
For the record I'm not a Trump fan either. I'd like to reform some stuff like patent law but Trump would burn most of it down.
I'm just saying that ~in theory~ Pence is an olive branch towards the middle. I don't think Trump will follow up on it in any way, nor will he be elected given the polls.
Maybe it has always been this way.
More from Republicans: Theodore Roosevelt, probably George Wallace and Ross Perot
More from Democrats: Henry Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Ralph Nader
Who knows: John Anderson.
I think that Roosevelt, Perot, and Nader all had strong effects, I don't think that Thurmond, either Wallace, or Anderson changed the outcome.
Alternately, to people who consider it the same as voting for Hillary, I blithely say, "No, because otherwise I would vote for Trump." Same lovely effect.
No, to all evidence, 1992 was a far stronger year for that; while things might change between now and November, for pretty much the entire election season then Perot alone was polling above the combined total (at the same point in the campaign) of all non-major-party candidates this year. (And, during the primary season, sometimes ahead of both of the major party frontrunners in head-to-head polls that year.)
In terms of the electoral votes, there's essentially no chance of a third party result this year more successful than 1836, 1892, or 1948, and little chance of either electoral or popular vote success of a third party candidate more than 1856 or 1924.
In the meantime, we have this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/02/toxic-gas-in-the-...
The series of wars in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq involve a lot more than that, and a Turkey-Syria-Russia alignment doesn't remove the basis for them (though it might reduce the level of violence in Syria while increasing it in Iraq, particularly Iraqi Kurdistan (and even moreso ex-Iraqi Kurdistan if the movement of that region to secede from Iraq progresses.)
Erdogan and Assad are hardly buddies, even after the attempted coup.
So the decision is not between war and peace in Syria. It is between one war and another. The alternative you describe might be shorter (or it might not be, depending on how Hillary would execute her plan to go after Assad, among numerous other factors), but it may also be worse in many other respects.
See the article and State Department testimony below, emphasis mine.
NYT, from 2013:
"Last summer, as the fighting in Syria raged and questions about the United States’ inaction grew, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton conferred privately with David H. Petraeus, the director of the C.I.A. The two officials were joining forces on a plan to arm the Syrian resistance.
The idea was to vet the rebel groups and train fighters, who would be supplied with weapons. The plan had risks, but it also offered the potential reward of creating Syrian allies with whom the United States could work, both during the conflict and ___after President Bashar al-Assad’s eventual removal___.
Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Petraeus presented the proposal to the White House, according to administration officials. But with the White House worried about the risks, and with President Obama in the midst of a re-election bid, they were rebuffed."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/us/politics/in-behind-scen...
From 2011, testimony by Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, State Department:
"But we take the advent of the [Syrian National Council] very seriously, and we support the broader opposition’s efforts to focus on the critical task of expanding and consolidating its base of support within Syria by articulating a clear and common vision and ___developing a concrete and credible post-Assad transition plan.___"
http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Jeffrey_Feltman_...
At least to 2006, ten years ago, thanks to the US Embassy cable published by Wikileaks:
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html
Some coverage:
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/10/wikileaks-cabl...
"The cables also show that U.S. support for efforts to overthrow the Syrian government beginning in 2011 were not a response to the Assad government’s repression of protests but rather a continuation of a years-long strategy by more directly violent means."
Without that cable, this would be impossible to prove. Helps understanding why Manning who leaked that was 9 months in solitary confinement, stripped naked:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/11/stripped-naked...
Just a reminder, this is the presidential candidate in question:
Citation still needed. The material you provided is interesting and perhaps notable, and perhaps, if followed through, could be first steps in a campaign to remove Assad. But it's far from a direct call for regime change, as you are claiming.
Again, I'm probably more in agreement with your perspective than disagreement, but we all parties are best served if we make make more precise, evidence backed claims.
Hint: She and her husband are in bed with the House of Saud. Her (their) deep commitment to Israel is unquestionable. Never forget that she's a neocon and worships Henry Kissinger. It's just that she's joined at the waist to a democrat.
I suspect you would be surprised how much that sentence scares me.
Great plan, weren't there all these terrorists cutting of heads and stuff, making him look like an angel. Also there is this tiny problem of Russian troops fighting for Assad, which could interfere with the otherwise genius plan.
Someone else running for president this year has pledged that the first act of her address would be removing Assad.
Which brings us back at the beginning of stupid actions.