Out to Pasture (2020 Election Game) Gameplay Thread

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Notable tweets from Sen. Portman:

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Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Ohio Governor John Kasich endorse Rob Portman for President-

More info will be posted shortly.

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Portman for America
January - March 2019

January

January 20th- Official announcement speech/event at the Huntington Conv. Center in Cleveland, OH

Speech excerpt:

"For too long our diplomatic situation has, if you look at it, been dominated by us getting the lower end of trade deals and diplomatic alliances. Our diplomats and our congressmen are too weak to actually stand up to countries that hit us around like a pinata. Their cowardice does not stop until we are actually having our currencies and our economy manipulated and held from a string by foreign powers. Wake up America! I could sit by like a good senator and support my party's President, which I do like Pence, but it's decisions like his when it comes to foreign policy that I feel cannot be representing our party. This administration, as with the last three or so, have sold us out to foreign powers. Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia, China, the EU, all are vying for a piece of us and our government is giving us away like candy. Wake up, the Pence administration is taking our party towards a expensive Neoconservative platform which will hurt us in the same way that it hurt us in 2008. We need to stop letting countries buy into us and we need to finally stand up, rise!"

January 22nd-30th - Fundraising tour across Ohio, with events at Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo, Youngstown, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Athens.

February

February 10th-22nd - Events tour across the midwest including fundraising events in Chicago, Detroit, Appleton, Eden Prairie, Springfield, Columbia, and Omaha, topped off by a speech at the McCormick Place in Chicago.

February 24th - Portman does a live skype call with voters to address questions and state his positions, but mainly to share his message directly with ordinary people. About 500k people tune in over the course of the hour long call, which was advertised on Portman's website as well as internet ads.

March

March 2nd-10th - Meetings with manufacturing industry leaders across the country highlighted with a speech at US Steel Works in Pittsburgh.

March 13th-21st - Tour of New Hampshire, including 3 town halls and 2 other public events, also including meetings with community leaders.

Creds go to me for this poster

Campaign Strategy

-Focus on winning New Hampshire - The electorate of New Hampshire is populist and moderate, which is prime target material for Rob Portman's campaign. This will be a must win state for the campaign and it will be the campaigns main target state going forward.

-Appeal to Urban and Rural Working Class - The prime target market for the campaign going forward will be the White and Black working class in urban and rural areas. These voters are drawn to populist rhetoric and will be drawn to the campaign going forward. Obama-Trump voters are a prime target demographic as well.

[Grassroots]

Response from Sen. Portman

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(Ideastream)

Rob Portman Forum Answers

Many of you have very strong views on the President's tax cuts, which recently passed the Senate 53-47, with six of you even voting on it (all against). Would each of you care to once again clarify your position on the issue, and would the Senators explain the reasoning behind their votes?

There's no debate in that tax breaks are inherently good for our economy and society, particularly for average people. But what most people don't realize is that hard tax cuts like these put us at a substantial risk of going what I call, budget AWOL. The Obama administration put us in massive debt by incessantly spending every penny. The Trump administration didn't do that, but instead they spent every penny towards tax breaks. The similarity is that neither administration has cut even a bit of spending. Due to these tax cuts, and the tax cuts from 2017, the current administration has been adding to the debt at a higher rate than Obama's did. That's just despicable, and that's why I voted no on the bill.

Healthcare is the #1 issue Americans are concerned about this election cycle. How would each of you format healthcare under your administration?

It's obvious that Obamacare has to go. In contrary to what Miss Abrams said, yes, it is massively unconstitutional. It's been far too long. I don't really believe that the government should have as much control over the healthcare system. It's too expensive and by privatizing it we could actually employ more people in the process and stimulate the economy. The benefits outweigh the cons two to nothing, so I see no reason not to privatize some of our healthcare industry. Competition will keep the prices lower than the government can by itself. I'm not saying we should completely gut the HHS, but at least privatize some of it. It's going to save us time and money going forward that we can spend towards getting rid of our debt.

Climatologists now say we have little more than a decade to roll back our global greenhouse gas input before disastrous irreversibility strikes. Do you agree with this assessment? If so, how would you move to lessen this nation's carbon footprint? If not, why do you believe it not to be the case?

The best way to solve the problem is through the free market. We need to encourage a healthy economy in general so that green energy and technology can get the investment they need to grow. By creating an economy that is friendly to green tech, we can push it even further than government funding can. I strongly believe against tearing down Nuclear, which is an extremely useful and convenient source of energy that we as a nation are lucky to have, and we would be idiots not to use it for the peaceful purposes it provides. I also don't believe in tearing down existing coal and oil plants. If we are to achieve energy independence, we are going to need all that we can get, that includes both fossil fuels and green energy.

You stated that you would support fiscal responsibility no matter what in one of your campaign speeches, and cited this as to why you rejected the President's tax cuts. Would you, then, raise taxes in order to cut the national deficit?

Not at all. It's all in our spending. All we need to do is crack down on waste and fraud, there's a ton of bad stuff going on there that has been caused by decades of inefficient, partisan bureaucracy. There's plenty of useless spending examples that we could throw out that could get us to where we want our debt situation and budget to be. No tax increases are necessary. The democrats, on the other hand, don't want to have to toughen up and do the dirty work of taking out the spending trash, instead they would rather increase taxes on regular Americans. In reality, they do that and they increase spending at a faster rate than they tax. That's what Obama did, and that's what these people you see here will do. So to answer your question, no, I'm not raising any taxes as president.

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Rob Portman Campaign Ad

Failure In Chief

Aired in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Vermont.

(Human Rights Campaign)

*Pessimistic shots of Washington*

Narrator: As our economy continues to not work for Americans, as our debt continues to rise, the president pushes a bill which will add hundreds of millions to our debt.

*Pessimistic shots of Mike Pence*

Narrator: Mike Pence blames others and accuses his opponents of being anti-American, all while his administration adds to the debt at a higher rate than Obama's did. That's not being fiscally conservative, not's not how the Republican party should be.

*Black and white picture of Pence with "Failure" in bold lettering covering his eyes*

Narrator: Mike Pence is leading America towards bankruptcy. Will you stand by and let him?

Rob Portman: "I am Rob Portman, and I approve this message."

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Portman tweets out:

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Portman For America campaign platform
New Additions

Overall theme: Right-Wing Populism

-Cleaning Washington

Portman's #1 campaign stance is ending corruption and logjam in Washington. This will be a bold undertaking, with a focus on increasing government transparency, transparency of actions made by elected officials and the executive branch. There will also be an emphasis on increasing oversight of congress and the executive branch and reducing salaries for elected officials. There will also be an emphasis on justice for corrupt officials and raised consequences for actions of such.

-Enforcing our borders and customs

A major campaign point is a hard line on immigration. We must take no time to solve our problems at the border before our problems at the border solve us. We need to deport all illegal immigrants and create a strong and secure barrier at the southern border. Only after that can we make it easier for people to immigrate to our country, from anywhere, not just Latin America.

-Enforcing fiscal responsibility

Our debt is out of control. Both Democrats and Republicans have failed to stop the rise, both the Obama and Trump administrations have only amplified the problem. We need to finally enforce a spending cap and start controlling how much we spend. When it comes to the budget, the Portman administration will always put debt reduction first. Even over potential tax breaks.

-Protecting American Jobs, Industry, and Retail

Any and all measures will be taken to save and revive the American manufacturing industry. No hesitation will be used to kill unfair trade deals and enact tariffs against countries like China and India which steal our jobs and industries. We must do whatever needs to be done to reclaim our former manufacturing dominance. Reductions of the minimum wage, harsh penalties for companies that outsource, and a federal jobs guarantee are on the table. We must also work to save our dying retail industry, a stable of American culture and the American economy, by any means necessary. From breaking up tech giants to putting restrictions on online purchases to giving large tax breaks for retail, no measure is too great to undertake.


New:

-Freedom from technology

Big-tech exploits the American economic system to the maximum legal extent, and to prevent them from exploiting our systems further we have to remove the loopholes they use to unfairly expand into monopolies, which doing so leads to job reductions and economic decay. Under a Portman administration, significant measures will be taken to reduce the influence of massive companies, such as preventing mergers of a certain size, and perhaps even breaking up bloated corporations to add color to the economic environment. We must also rework our tax laws when it comes to this. Companies like Amazon pay absolutely nothing in taxes. That's going to change during a Portman administration. We must also work to protect internet users from privacy invasion and corporate exploits. Under a Portman presidency, net neutrality will be protected without question, and additional oversight will be provided to ensure no online privacy violations by corporations.

-Leveling of the social playing field

On day one of the Portman administration, affirmative action will be ended. This is not a popular position by any means, but the reality is no one should have an advantage over anyone, in college applications, in applying for a job, for anything. A thing about today's society, we have achieved complete social equality. That said, there is no need to keep affirmative action in place. The democratic party, in both 2019 and 1879, wants certain people to have advantages over other people. It's time to balance the scales.

AMERICA FOREVER

[Grassroots]

Rob Portman town hall excerpt

Manchester NH - April 19th 2019

Special attendance by Ohio Gov. John Kasich

(Time)

Portman: You, right there.

Middle aged man in a flannel: Me?

Portman: Yeah, stand up!

Man: Senator Portman, during the 2016 campaign, we were promised a wall and a comprehensive solution to the massive solution to the crisis at the border. Three years later there is still no wall, and the crisis at the border is still ongoing. What will you do that Trump couldn't?

Portman: That's a really good question. The Trump administration promised a whole lot on the border and nothing has ever happened. The reality is that what he promised was mostly ear candy and it isn't a sustainable solution. We need a border at the barrier but the wall was, unfortunately, overboard and it had to be funded by a lot of funds that we simply don't have. It would have put us into more debt and I refuse to be fiscally responsible. We should instead put a high tech security barrier and build a fence, which already exists in a few areas, and expand it across the whole length of the border. This does exactly what the wall would do but it's more fiscally responsible. Thus, we will have greater cooperation from congress and actually get done what Trump couldn't.

Man: That addresses my question, thank you.

Portman: You.

Teenage girl: Hi, your positions on police violence and black lives matter aren't very well known. This is an important issue to me and my friends, so could you please state your position?

Portman: Absolutely. Our police officers, who are trying their best to uphold the law in our country, are being labelled for the mistakes of a select few officers. I don't believe that there is a reason for race relations to be as heated as they are right now, and I certainly don't think that any group, our policemen or Black Lives Matter, should have their vocal rights be infringed upon. Both sides have their points.

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Rob Portman debate answers


(Cleveland Scene)

Opening Statement

I would first like to thank the moderators of this debate, the candidates around me for participating, and the American people for watching. My fellow Americans. We are in a crisis as a country. Our industries are collapsing, our retail sector is collapsing, our economy is falling behind, we as a nation are falling behind. But the media won't tell you that. Congress won't tell you that. The Pence administration won't tell you that. Because they profit from it. They are letting us fail, for profit. The rest of the international community is laughing at us in our decline, while our government busies itself with internal affairs and conflicts. This is not the greatest nation on earth. We should be the greatest nation on earth. We were the greatest nation on earth. What happened? It's simple. We shipped our industry overseas. We outsourced. We allowed other nations to get ahead of us in technology and economics. The previous administrations slacked off, instead getting us into random, meaningless wars in the middle east. We shouldn't be there. We shouldn't be repairing other nations. We should be repairing ourselves. I am running on a platform of repairing us. As your president, the United States will be the greatest nation on earth. That's why I'm here.

Similarly to Senator Paul, will you oppose the President's new infrastructure legislation, and why or why not?

If the President can ensure spending cuts that balance it out, absolutely. Our infrastructure in this nation is crumbling, and it's going to take more than private groups to come in and do it all. However, we are talking about costs going into the hundreds of billions. That's extreme, and if the President could ensure a cut that balances out the cost of the bill, then yeah, I would optimistically support the bill.

Closing statement

It's time for us to move into the 21st century as a nation. The GOP of the old, it's time to move on from that. If we want to win in November, we have to embrace the aspects which really unite this party, such as protectionism and patriotism, and call out the Democratic candidates for what they are, frauds. The establishment doesn't want it, but we are growing, faster then they could believe. It's time to move on from the Trump/Pence administration, and it's time to move on from weak libertarian values. We must now try something different, unite behind a fresh face. I am that fresh face that the establishment and the democratic party doesn't want leading the party, or to have power. It's time to do something new for America, for the America today, for the America tomorrow, for America, forever. That's what this campaign is about, America, forever. I'm asking for your support.

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Portman tweet