Who won the first US Vice Presidential Debate of 2016?
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 6018 votes
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 34 comments
First (Score:2)
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If you're going to keep doing these political polls, I think you need to fork now. One poll for the 2nd debate and a concurrent poll for the effects of the pussy video on the election. Pretty sure it is going to have an effect on the election, but completely unsure what question or options to use... Only got the Cowboy Neal option:
Cowboy Neal turned on the mike.
"You’ve whipped out that Mexican thing again (Score:5, Funny)
SNL and every late-night show will live a month off that one. Pence has a way with words.
Pence Prevailed but... (Score:2)
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So is the rest of the election - pretty shallow and you have to pick between two political turds.
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I believe it's between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.
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...And I just used my last mod point.
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So is the rest of the election - pretty shallow and you have to pick between two political turds.
Don't like HIllary? Don't vote for her.
Don't like Trump? Don't vote for him.
Don't like either? See the above, but remember that abstentions aren't counted.
Re:Pence Prevailed but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't like either? See the above, but remember that abstentions aren't counted.
If everyone who doesn't like Hillary but are voting for her because they are afraid of Trump and everyone who doesn't like Trump but are voting for him because they are afraid of Hillary voted for third party candidate like Johnson or Stein, then neither Hillary or Trump would get elected.
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The House would then pick for you from Clinton, Trump, and Johnson - how is that better?
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I'm going to take the argument that Jill Stein is more dangerous than either Clinton or Trump, because I don't care about Johnson.
One of the criticisms of her is that she wants to move to completely renewable energy by 2030. This is the kind of project that places like Germany and Costa Rica are undertaking, it's not that unrealistic. Yes, getting there entirely will probably not happen but there's nothing wrong with the goal, especially now that solar is more cost effective than oil.
Another criticism direc
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Well, since you asked:
How about this email [wikileaks.org] in which the DNC national press secretary, Mark Paustenbach, sought alterations to an unflattering Hillary article that was sent to him before release? Clinton's spokesman, Josh Schwerin, successfully pushed back on that piece, by the way, rewording how funds raised were to be distributed so as to diminish the poor state-level distribution.
Or how about this email [wikileaks.org], which showed the DNC deputy communications director, Christina Freundlich, seeking approval to frau
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So just don't (Let the House decide) (Score:3)
If everyone who doesn't like Hillary but are voting for her because they are afraid of Trump and everyone who doesn't like Trump but are voting for him because they are afraid of Hillary voted for third party candidate like Johnson or Stein, then neither Hillary or Trump would get elected.
Very likely. The result would be that nobody would get an electoral college majority, and nobody would be "elected": instead the presidency would be chosen by the House of Representatives from the top three candidates, according to the procedures in the Constitution.
Since the House is majority Republican, this would result in Trump becoming president.
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I'm pretty sure the moment they try this, the democrats will be telling everyone it is illegal to change who is on the ballot and that it's too late to do so on most state ballots
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The democrats can whine all they want. First, there is nothing stopping anyone from writing in any name they choose. Democrats would be best served by writing Bernie Sanders. Republicans by anyone but one of their 16 candidates.
Also, they'd better not whine too much - if Hillary has yet another brain seizure and word gets out, she's out. A concussion has to be extremely severe to cause the loss of concentration and memory she claimed when she said she couldn't remember if she had been in any briefings abou
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There's another explanation for her not remembering: she just didn't care enough about email security to pay attention during the briefing or even remember that it had happened. Personally, I find that to be the most likely reason for her lack of memory because it fits into her character (or, mo
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So what? Both he and Clinton can claim all they want - they're both liars. Notice how Clinton didn't categorically deny that the contents of the latest email leaks weren't accurate? Just weasel words about "who knows if they're legitimate" (she sure as hell should) and "Russia Russia Russia." Trump is a doofus, but you know something - he will do less damage than Clinton, simply because he won't be in charge any more than Obama could make things happen without the cooperation of the House and Senate. There
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If everyone who doesn't like Hillary but are voting for her because they are afraid of Trump and everyone who doesn't like Trump but are voting for him because they are afraid of Hillary voted for third party candidate like Johnson or Stein, then neither Hillary or Trump would get elected.
Every other time I've voted, I've voted on who I liked best. I have never voted just to keep someone out of office. I've voted 3rd party for president before. What are our options this time:
Trump: Corrupt, liar, power hungry, pure evil, makes me worry about future of democracy. If he gets elected watch us have some crisis prevent elections four years from now.
Clinton: Corrupt. power hungry.
OK- what about third parties?
Stein: Crazy old crone. Completely batshat.. Crazy-old-cat lady was modeled on he
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Guess those third-party and independent candidates don't count, huh?
Vote for whomever you actually like. If you want Clinton, vote Clinton. If you want Trump, vote Trump. If you want Johnson, vote Johnson. If you want Stein, vote Stein. If you want somebody else, vote for somebody else. Just don't buy into the lesser of two evils bullshit, because that's exactly how we arrived at this situation.
Re: Pence Prevailed but... (Score:2)
We will have a candidate. Thanks to the unconstitutional winner takes all and bound electorates we will have a president. Now if it waa based on district or popular votes like in 1960 with Kennedy vs Nixon with unbound electorates then a debate could happen.
Not today though
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God damn it was a shallow affair.
If you've heard the #TrumpTapes, the shit just got a whole lot deeper.
Next poll should be about when Trump will withdraw from the race.
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I love all the outrage over Trump's 80's-esque jock-talk. Tell me, where was it when Bill Clinton was accused of rape [wikipedia.org] (an accusation that's never been rescinded)?
Where was your pious outrage then? Where was it during Bill's numerous known infidelities, in which he evidently abused his power to ensure sexual favors from women serving beneath him? As I recall, the sentiment back then was, "yeah, it's bad personally, but basically irrelevant to the execution of his position."
Yes, Hillary is running, not Bill,
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I suppose you're right. I keep thinking Trump might have a shred of decency somewhere in there.
Regarding your ad hominem attacks on Bill Clinton, you yourself said he isn't the candidate. At the time, I was interested in the evidence, but most of the attacks seemed highly partisan and questionable, and they retain that appearance to this day. Ditto the extensions to Hillary. A few blowjobs don't bother me as long as it didn't interfere with his job performance. Impeachment? Didn't fly.
As regards Hillary her
Worst election canadates in 50 years (Score:5, Insightful)
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Didn't presidential debates used to have actual policy in them? Isn't the purpose to inform voters?
Not since Nixon and Kennedy went on TV. They're more like the question section of a beauty pageant, where the contestant has limited time to respond to an inane question that few of the audience actually have the background to follow. More poetry slam than Lincoln-Douglas.
The people love it, so what can you do? The first presidential debate was hyped as a verbal slap-fest between one of the best puerile voices of our time and one of the most accomplished high-level manipulators, and people tuned in in drov
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But, world peace!
The issues in a nutshell (Score:1)
Trump is for teaming up with other countries to deal with Islamic terrorism, including traditional enemies of the USA. That seems to include Assad, Russia, and Egypt so far. Hillary opposes this.
Trump doesn't care about the Ukraine, Hillary does.
If Hillary becomes president, Assad dies. Under Trump, Assad lives.
Trump wants stuff from NATO, Hillary does not.
Trump is a protectionist. Hillary is not.
Trump wants strong border controls, and deportations, but how strong is uncertain right now. Hillary wants weake
Re:The issues in a nutshell (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you implying that police brutality is not a crime?
Also, Trump wants a wall. I'm not sure that counts as a strong border control. It would probably end up diverting tens of billions of dollars from actually fixing the immigration system.
You conveniently left off some of the other differences. Trump has these positions that are different from Hillary: Muslims should not be allowed in this country. We should punish women who get abortions. We should not have universal background checks for gun purchases. Climate change is a Chinese hoax. Libel laws should be broadened. And you should be able to punch somebody at one of his rallies if they heckle him. Until a couple of weeks ago, he also claimed Obama was not really born in America (not that it really should have affected his legitimacy as president).
Many of these positions are antithetical to traditional American values, like religious freedom and free speech. Others are not in keeping with some traditional voter blocs. Over 70% of NRA members support plugging the private sale loophole. A vast majority of pro-lifers do not see punishing women as a viable solution.
Face it, the guy's a loose cannon. His foreign policy proposals have been all over the place, and his domestic policies will end up increasing the national debt far more than Hillary's. That's from a right-leaning think tank, btw.
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You fail reading comprehension. The GP's post reflects no preferences, nor does it split hairs; he merely states positions in an unbiased manner.
Unlike the GP, instead of providing the additional differences you seem to promise, your post is an anti-Trump rant.
Re: The issues in a nutshell (Score:3)
Fixing the immigration system is trivial, we simply lack the will to do it... all we need to do is to consistently enforce existing immigration laws. We have laws that say you must be an American citizen (or have the proper documentation) to work in America - enforce the law. We have laws that say it is illegal to cross
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Fixing the immigration system is trivial, we simply lack the will to do it... all we need to do is to consistently enforce existing immigration laws.
Yes, but enforcing laws requires more boots on the ground to do that. Changes in the systems so finding the people and making the case can be made. Actually bundling up illegals and shipping them back. One of the big things they could do is revamp the employee tax or SS system so that it would be come harder to pretend to be somebody else. That requires changes to be made, systems to put into place, the actually acting on it. The IT demands of a federal program like that alone would be the 'billions of doll
Re: The issues in a nutshell (Score:2)
It exists, it's called E-Verify, all we need to do is require it's usage and fine those employers that fail to use it. Again, enforce actual laws already on
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Fixing the immigration system is trivial, we simply lack the will to do it... all we need to do is to consistently enforce existing immigration laws.
You have elected government official, mainly democrats who are opposed to it. You have a government in power, that operates and forces "catch and release." You have a government that threatens and orders the people who are "boots on the ground" to release illegals. You have government bodies that order those boots on the ground to ignore the pleas of the citizens of the country and blindly ignore illegals. You have cities that operate as sanctuaries, all democrat controlled.
That's why there's been group
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It would probably end up diverting tens of billions of dollars from actually fixing the immigration system.
The only thing that will ever stop illegal immigration from Mexico is fixing Mexico. You don't see many people crossing illegally between Canada and the US, even when significant portions of the border is secured by nothing more than a drainage ditch, or a cut in the forest. No matter what you do, no matter how high a wall you put in, or if you put in east-germany style no-man lands with land mines, and soldiers with orders to shoot to kill, people will still come.
All they need is even the slightest glimmer
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Read the stuff Jefferson and Adams said about each other. It's turtles all the way down
Re: Worst election canadates in 50 years (Score:2)
What you see in the debates are distraction issues. Moderators are deliberately trying to avoid any meaningful discussion of economics, taxes, trade, immigration, or foreign policy. I would ditch the moderators altogether and give each candidate equal time to answer questions from the audience. Also cut down the number of questions so the candidates can answer in depth.
Pence Won (Score:1)
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I know, I was like "WTF? Did I have a brainfart and mix up their names? Lemme double-check...nope."
Long term winner? NOT Trump (Score:2)
I think if you judged it narrowly as a debate, then you'd be hard pressed to say Tim Kaine won. He evaded questions and keep failing to clash with his opponent on the actual questions. He was constantly interrupting, though he looked happy about it rather than angry (like the Donald).
However, at a strategic level, I think Kaine was right to anticipate that Pence was quite well prepared to defend himself--but Kaine barely even swatted at Pence. Kaine's focus was on making the VP debate into another referendu
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I can't find these guys... http://scuttlebutt.com/ [scuttlebutt.com] saying a thing about Trump. Perhaps you have a link for those accusations?
I'm betting Trump was grinning like a possum eating persimmons and asking everyone around him,"Does anyone pick 'em better than me? Nobody. I know how to winners. That's why I'm winning."
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Sorry, not sure exactly where I heard it, but that's why I chose the descriptor "scuttlebutt". Didn't know there was such a website, but not surprised. I definitely saw it on a number of places, but that's part of the problem of the Internet these days. Your data channels can get stuffed with garbage, and you often need to work hard to get all the data rather than the confirming data that your "personalized" search engine thinks you WANT to have. However, in this case I can definitely say that I saw a numbe
Not the American People, really. (Score:1)
Tim Kaine pursued a Donald Trump-esque approach, which was a failure, while Pence seemed suaver, I spotted so much bullshit from him, he even repeated Mitt Romney's line about the number of ships in the US Navy* from 2012, along with a host of others, including that line about the Clinton Foundation, that even if his boss to be wasn't a total con-man I wouldn't want anywhere NEAR a political office, or anything to be honest, I'd not vote for him.
*Seriously, the size of the US Navy? Smaller than any size tha
Can we flip the GOP ticket? (Score:5, Interesting)
Putting aside views on what they said (and debating that into the ground), Gov. Pence beat Sen. Kaine, hands down.
Pence definitely has his flaws (totally against abortion, being attached to Trump in any way, looks a lot like Hawk from Buck Rogers (TV) [nocookie.net], etc.). He looked and acted like a presidential candidate, however.
Kaine, OTOH, was a snarky, ADHD child that missed his considerable Adderall dose that day. He needed to wipe that stupid smirk off of his face, stop interrupting everything with his memorized one-liners (didn't he watch Trump do that and look bad?), and actually talk about HIS views and compare himself to Gov. Pence. It was as if his one and only job was to blow himself up, Pence, and the entire debate to put 100% of the focus back on Hillary vs. Trump (which he almost accomplished)
Even Hillary advocates in the press have focused solely on the Trump topic when talking about the VP debate - and then quickly buried the story. Also note that the big TV networks didn't have "Who won the VP debate polls?" on their sites (CNN was the only one that was advertised). I suspect that they knew the numbers wouldn't be good for their preferred candidate.
Now if we could only put Pence against Clinton and see if she could stand up to a real candidate's fire on the debate stage.
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It's not about moral fortitude, it's a business decision. Do you expend more resources on something than you have to?
Some of the lawsuits that get slung around are the equivalent of patent trolls. Many pay the shakedown fee rather than spend much more in time/money/legal effort needed to wage a moral crusade.
Your assumption that they should have repented or made some statement about wrongful conduct does not make sense when a settlement does not assign any guilt.
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Can we swap the Libertarian and Republican tickets?
The Libertarian ticket would have been a "perfectly good" Republican ticket 16 years ago.
Why bother? The Democrat ticket would be a perfectly good Republican ticket from 30 years ago.
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Pence simply ignored all the pointed questions with evasions and/or lies.
Re:Can we flip the GOP ticket? (Score:4, Insightful)
In his defense, smug smirking assholes who mistake snarky one liners for substantive arguments were probably the voter demographic he was appealing to.
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Now if we could only put Pence against Clinton and see if she could stand up to a real candidate's fire on the debate stage.
Clinton is smart and a *highly* experienced policy wonk. She's been living and breathing politics her entire adult life, 40+ years. I suspect she will do quite well or at least decently.
Remember back during the Dem primaries, when Bernie supporters were mad because Wasserman-Schultz and other party officials conspired to keep the number of debates as low as possible, and schedule the few debates they did have in really bad timeslots (like up against major sporting events) where nobody was gonna watch it? C
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There are examples of brain damaged people - I mean physical damage, not someone's fiery opinion - as U.S. President. During Wilson's last 3 years he suffered from the effects of a stroke and was essentially mentally incompetent. FDR died in office from a stroke and had been deteriorating before that.
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Hillary freezing up on stage [youtube.com]
Hillary possibly having a seizure [youtube.com]
Hillary goes goofy at DNC balloon drop [youtube.com]
Re: Can we flip the GOP ticket? (Score:2)
Hey Nixon was brilliant and qualified to be president and was most professional candidate in over 25 years!
Would you vote for him?
I am still voting for Hillary keep in mind because Trump scares the crap out of me but I do not blame Republicans for not voting for her.
She is corrupt and part of the establishment. Trump cannot be bought and is a breath of fresh air if your IQ is under 100 and do not realize how important the job is as most non college educated white people Trump supporters.
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It's depressing that your evaluation of the candidates is based on your judgement of their appearance and overall "snark" level. Aside from being subjective, it ignores what was actually said, which was dynamite.
Pence tried to gaslight the audience, repeatedly denying that Trump said things he is on film and Twitter saying. Do you really want a guy who doesn't even try to own the President's comments, but instead just lies about him having ever said them?
I see nothing wrong with trying to hold Trump to acco
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The problem with holding Trump to account that night was that Trump wasn't there - Mike Pence was. It was supposed to be the VP debate - Kaine vs. Pence. Instead, it was a Kaine-led political hack job that ignored any substantive debate. When Pence eventually addressed Trump's crazy statements, he said something like, "He's not a polished politician like Hillary or yourself" - which was true. That should've been the end of it - so some real discussion could happen. Instead, Kaine programmatically went right
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Why do so many people feel the that Mike Pence won the debate?
I do not believe that they do. I think that we are seeing a phenomenon in which these results in no way reflect reality. It would be interesting if there was a thorough analysis to understand if this is due to AstroTurf, the tendencies of red team and blue team players, or the actions of a few obsessive Trumpsters that know the end is near. We'll see on election day how the skewed results here in no way resemble reality. I'm more interested in understanding why that may be, exactly; there may be deeper
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Ahh, the old, "I don't agree with the results, so they must be fake!" based on... your gut feeling? That's it? Really?
Do you also disagree with the Slashdot poll showing Hillary beating Trump?
It was right before this one. Was that ALSO astroturfed?
Re: Are you people serious? (Score:1)
Right, well, the GOP did post a story praising Pence as the winner... two hours before it actually started.
Re: Are you people serious? (Score:2)
What, you don't think their opinion of Pence's performance was predictable? Someone mistakenly hit 'send', so what? Has any political party ever officially confirmed the opposing party's candidate won a debate?
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.... the job isn't worth a bucket of warm piss. Cold piss maybe, but not warm.
I'd settle for tepid pus.
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Maybe because he didn't go full asshole like his opponent did? It's not that Pence won, it's that Kaine lost.
Either way, Indiana wins. (Score:4, Insightful)
As an Indiana resident, I'm happy to see Pence running for Vice President. Because that means he's not running for reelection as our governor. I'd like to see us have a governor that wants to represent everyone in the state, not just the right wing bible thumper contingent that wants to hide their bigotry behind the little baby Jesus.
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I'm going to surprise you and say that's what I want to do too. I'll readily admit that the state was in horrible condition under the last Democrat, and it took a Republican, Mitch Daniels, to fix it. I'd vote for Mitch for a third (fourth, and fifth, etc) term in a heartbeat. He wanted to represent all Hoosiers and made it clear from Day 1 of his first term that he was not interested in social issues. That's why we didn't have bullshit like the Baby Jesus LGBT Discrimination Act...um...er...the Religious
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My opponent is a liar and he cannot be trusted. (Score:1)
My opponent is a liar and he cannot be trusted.
Missing Option: (Score:2)
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Good point. I found it rather painful to watch, but somehow felt obliged to continue...
One has to do one's duty. Like voting, even ritually.
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Does it occur to any of you too refined to be sullied by the actual work of democracy, that if you were to get your hands dirty with the rest of us, we might not find ourselves in this position of choosing between the lesser of two evils?
Depends... (Score:2)
Do you mean by personality, and appearing to know what he's talking about? Pence won that.
Do you mean being generally truthful, and not not lying about everything you've been challenged about? Kaine won that.
Do you mean who actually convinced me that he has good ideas, and would actually bring something useful to the table? I didn't notice either person doing that - they were too busy talking about their running mates.
Mrs. Robinson won it (Score:2)
Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon.
Going to the candidates' debate.
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at this you lose.
That song is from 1968, folks. Things don't really change that much.
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Except now we don't even have Joe DiMaggio to turn our lonely eyes to...
Michael Caine IMHO. (Score:2)
'cause he's always winning!
You left out the real winner (Score:2)