Don't know if anyone else caught this documentary on Netflix that came out recently, but it's quite the show...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6714534/

This guy started his career in the Nixon White House, helped get Reagan elected (slogan: Make America Great Again, ring any bells?) and then proceeded to make millions by opening a consulting firm to lobby the Reagan administration on behalf of his clients. People in the industry say the firm has been pretty much the epitome of the 'sleazy lobbyist'. They work for pretty much anyone, tobacco, big oil, foreign dictators, you name it. He's also been behind pretty much every nasty and dirty trick the GOP has played over the last 30 years, and relishes that role.

His most recent work is of course getting Trump elected, as he's apparently been a top strategic advisor to the campaign. Hard to argue he knows his politics.

Also, fun fact, he has a tattoo of Nixon's face on his back.

I watched part of this before falling asleep. Guy weirds me out. The shape of his head is just odd.

With that said I think openly calling politics a sport (the sport of politics) is just repudgent. Obviously we all know that there are tricks and gamesmanship but the fact that it can be admitted in an open forum as a strategy (by both sides) and celebrated just feels so wrong. Basically trying to trick the public is a viable, accepted strategy and not enough people seem to think it should be off limts

I'm not surprised he calls politics a sport. Politics and sports are identical. Look at the crap professional sports owners try to pull and it's similar to politics. You got owners (rich people) crying poverty and blaming the players (middle class) as the reason they have to raise ticket prices so that the fans (poor people) can watch their favorite teams. Meanwhile, the owners (rich people) and the corporate sponsors (companies) get richer and richer at the expense of the fans (poor people).

I mean the Florida Marlins have a $1.3 Billion price tag. The 2 main guys involved? Jeb! and Yea Jeets. If Jeb! was a vanilla flavored baseball player, he'd be Yea Jeets and if Yea Jeets were a politican, he'd be a mouth breather that is over-hyped because of the family name.

3five:

You must be too young to remember Watergate. Watch the movie "All The President's Men" and the scene where Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) flies out to California to knock on the door of Donald Segretti. Who was Donald Segretti? What was his "job" for the Nixon campaign?

Segretti was in charge of "dirty tricks" against the Democrats. His job was to travel around the country following the leading Democratic candidates while practicing the esoteric art of "rat f**king". What is "rat f**king" you ask? Rat f**king consisted of things like sabotaging Democratic fundraising events by having dozens of unordered pizzas delivered to the venue. So, while the candidate and his campaign manager were hoping to have constructive engagements with top donors, they get sidetracked attempting to deal with all the chaos involving the pizzas. Segretti referred to the pizza caper as a "nickel and dime" prank, but some of the stuff - like the infamous "Canuck Letter" that destroyed the candidacy of Edmund Muskie - was more serious. Donald Segretti was one (of many) who eventually wound up going to prison for their roles in Watergate.

Dirty tricks is subject to interpretation. What some people call "dirty tricks" other people - like Roger Stone and Karl Rove - think of as good campaign tactics. People like Stone, Rove (and the late Roger Ailes) view politics as war. Screwing your opponent is just part of the game as far as these folks are concerned. If their candidate loses, they're out in the cold with few (if any) lobbying or consulting gigs, so making sure their candidate wins is Job 1.

What a ****bag. Entertaining documentary.

+1

I watched Get Me Roger Stone! last night. Very good show. Low road politics works. It takes only a few seconds to tell a lie and the victim's on defense spending days or longer explaining why it's not true. The show begins with Nixon in 1968 goes through to Trump, but skipped over John McCain and Mitt Romney. Can I assume that those men ran clean campaigns?