I predict

[olds442jetaway]

I am going out on a limb here and predict President Trump will be reelected. A lifetime conservative myself, here are a few reasons why..... The memory of the American public is very short. Something like three or four weeks before the election. If Biden wins, I believe it would be quite likely that Kamala Harris would be President long before Biden’s four years were up. She has already said she will institute manditory gun buyback programs.
Trump will pick up votes of most NRA members. He is already picking up endorsements from police unions who have never endorsed anyone before. You will see between now and the election, Trump focusing more and more on the virus and some really good economic numbers will come out. You have things like the new Israel UAE agreement and there will be much more good news to follow shortly before the election. Probably most of the military and vets will vote Trump. The non stop crime in the big cities will hurt the dem vote as they are run by politicians that are weak on crime. My final prediction is there will be an announcement of an Anerican developed vaccine for Covid a few weeks before the election. Look, I don’t know any more than the next person, but I have been around 72 years. My Great grandfather who was the smartest person I have ever known in my lifetime, was born in the early 1880’s in the south and had a former slave as his best friend. He told me so many things as a young teen that have come true. Never trust the Russians, there will be race riots in this country and again 50 years after that. We will come close to another civil war. And one last thing. Socialism alyways has and always will fail. People need to work and have hope and not live with their hand out for their entire lives looking for handouts from the government.

[Antebellum Reb]

well this is somewhat interesting, and while i do not agree with a lot of what you said, i do agree with some, but most importantly i get the distinct impression that unlike some other posters who identify as "conservative, republican, right wing" etc you are not hostile or disrespectful or dishonest. you said you are 72 years old and you definitely show maturity in your posts, as well as a genuine good natured personality. your like minded cohorts could learn a thing or two from you.

[billryan]

I made a simple offer a week or two ago. The offer still stands. Anone who thinks Trump will win should accept the bet, otherwise its just internet talk. Strange that someone like onenot devotes half his waking hours to bashing biden but doesn't have the testicular fortitude to back his words up.

[olds442jetaway]

I guess until I meet someone personally, you don’t really ever know the man/woman. Guess While I am very conservative, I also try and treat everyone I meet equally until they prove they should be treated otherwise. I also know no matter what we post here, the likelihood of even one of us changing how we will vote is small. I am also very very pro enforcement of law especially in dealing with criminals. Just a couple more quick things about my Great Grandfather. Besides owning his own farm and building the family home in deep southwestern Virginia from scratch, e was National flintlock champion, such a good shot they wouldn't let him compete in turkey shoots, he was treasury of the Republican party in that neck of the woods, was the postmaster, and ran a general store and little gas station as part of the family home. He lived to be 98. During the depression, there was no cash and the coal mines issued script like cash. People were so poor down there they would come into the store and offer what meager crops they had as payment for things in the general store they needed. He would just give things away and never ask for payment. Sometimes years later a few would pay their tab, but not many. I got to work in that store in summers in the mid 1950s and on the farm until I was in my late teens. Those were my summers. The rest of the year, I was up here in Ct When my mom was born in the family home, the first man to hold her as the midwife passed her over was his best friend the forner slave. That former slave had saved the children from renegade Yankees toward the end of the cicil war. They killed what was left of the family meaning the adults. His friend ad placed the children in a root cellar with a haystack over it. The drunken yankee soldiers never found them when my mom was born, ny Great Grandfather was in his 40s and his friend in his mid 70s

[Sea Lion]

People need to work and have hope and not live with their hand out for their entire lives looking for handouts from the government.

This, a thousand times over. I am one for welfare reform as that system was intended to provide basic necessities until one can get back on their feet, not as a way of life. I am also for an honest days work for an honest days wage. If somebody really wants something, they'll go after it until they catch it, no matter how long it takes. Don't wait until someone hands it to you, because you'll be waiting a very long time. If you don't follow your dreams, someone else will most certainly pay you to follow theirs, and it might not be what you like.

[billryan]

Of course, when one follows ones dreams, like I do, you can expect to be endlessly attacked by career drones like onenote.

[seemoreroyals]

Olds, you may very well be right in your prediction. and thank you for, as AR said, your candor and civil way in which you express your opinion. Thank you for the stories about your great grandfather. I never got a chance to meet mine but I was named after him. I did spend a lot of summers at my grandfather's farm late 60's and early 70's hunting, fishing, helping out but getting in the way mostly. I remember one morning one summer I think I was about 10, my grandfather was on his way out the door to take the tractor and go dig up potatoes. I begged him to go and promised I would help dig potatoes. It sounded fun at the time. Against his better judgement he decided to let me go with him.

We got an early start. In Texas, the mornings are not too bad in the late Summer. Maybe starting out around 70 degrees with a cool breeze, up to about 85 or 90 by 9am, often up over 100 degrees with a heat index over 110 after lunch. Anyway, I kind of enjoyed the first hour or so, then as a typical 10 year old boy I lost interest. It was starting to get hot and I started thinking how nice it would be back at the farmhouse or swimming in the creek. I never asked him again to go dig potatoes. Looking back I developed an appreciation for how hard he worked and how easy I had it growing up.

Fast forward, here we are in Aug of 2020. We are about to hold the most important election of our lifetimes. While I agree with some of what you are saying olds, I respectfully hope your prediction is wrong. People do have short memories but the magnitude of the suffering brought about due to trump's mismanagement of covid19 will be on peoples mind when they go and vote. 170,000 deaths on the way to 250,000 by election time, lost jobs and businesses brought about at least in part due to trump's negligence in doing his job. I think trump will get the people you listed above to vote for him but they are part of the base that voted for him last time. I look for record voter turnout mainly there to vote against trump. That is why he is trying to suppress voting by fictitiously alleging voter fraud for people who want to vote by mail rather than wait in a long line where they risk catching the caronavirus.

Trump has nobody to blame but himself. Had he made the right decisions instead of absolving himself from any blame for the way things are at the moment, he would probably have won and won comfortably.

[notes1]

if the poll results are true and most americans favor opening schools and getting back to work, things might start getting interesting.

if one group keeps finding reasons to shut down, if they don't want to get back in the classroom, voters will label them as hindering the process, instead of finding ways to get things back to something resembling normal. and, if the current trends on deaths continues going lower, folks might start feeling more positive.

add in the chaos, riots, looting, acts of violence going on in big cities, all run by the same party, you got a real horse race. now, if only one of the candidates actually answered any questions.

[olds442jetaway]

The shootings lootings and maimings in the big cities continue this weekend especially in New York and Chicago. In Portland they are throwing softball size rocks at the police. Since 1984, if the stock market has done well in the three months before the election, The president that is in office will get reelected 87% of the time. I sense that Trump will do everything he can to prop up the market between now and election time. The interesting thing is half of Americans don’t own any stock and never well. So my question to that is are those the people that are least likely to vote? Or do they just figure they are going to do better with the current administration because the stock market is doing better.

[billryan]

Reagan, Clinton, Bush the Second, and Obama won election, Bush the First didn't.
How do you come up with 87%