Would you vote for Clinton over Cruz, Rubio or Carson?
Would you vote for Clinton over Cruz, Rubio or Carson?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Rubio over Clinton - maybe. Trump, Cruz and Carson - definitely not. Bush and Kasich over Clinton - very likely, but their campaigns are all but dead.
Hope is the denial of reality
Blocking the work of the senate/congress that repeatedly votes to fund Obamacare, planned parenthood, deficits etc is one of the platforms Republicans ran on. So far they have refused to stop funding the things they promised to so I don't see this as a bad thing. Taking 'extreme' positions on immigration is troublesome however Republicans have been burned over and over by this all the way back to the 80s so it is understandable. Carpet bombing cities? Carpet bombing the enemy positions sure but I don't think he's pushing for a coherent plan to carpet bomb specific cities.
As far as Carson - again political novice setting up his first campaign. You're going to get some folks wrong, it happens. I care more about the character of the man and the positions he actually does support.
Rubio's path of victory comes in some individuals dropping out and endorsing him. Jeb Bush for example who doesn't have a lot of love in the polls still has backers and influence in terms of providing $$ and ground game. Frankly I think Cruz and Trump are BOTH anti-establishment candidates who will likely split the vote in NH giving Rubio his first victory there. Then the avalanche of Republicans will come out in support of Rubio over Cruz and Trump. Trump being the egotistical asshole he is won't actually drop even when it becomes clear he won't win, pulling support from Cruz. I'm not at all certain of my analysis and it is optimistic thinking on my part but that's the path of victory I see for Rubio. Once it gets to the wider states a more serious look can be made and folks will realize he has the best shot of beating Clinton.
How long has Cruz been in the Senate? What has he accomplished other than blocking its work on every topic? Which relationships has he built? You're not naive enough to believe Cruz's and Trump's rhetoric that one can rule a country through willpower alone, do you? No one will work with Cruz and Cruz won't work with anyone.
He's not knowledgeable enough to hold any positions, and he doesn't have the right advisors to make him informed. Just how easy do you think being president is? You need to know how politics works. You need to have experience running a political system. You need to have the ability to build and maintain relationships. You need to know how the government functions, how people function within the government, and how to get things done. This isn't enough you magically learn on the job. Look at Obama's mistake. Half of them are a result of political inexperience. And you'd replace him with someone who has no experience at all?
Bush and Christie are polling at under 10% combined. Trump is up by a good 25% over Rubio.
Edit: compare Cruz to someone like Paul Ryan, someone who's about as right-wing as Cruz. And yet the guy has the respect of his colleagues, both Democratic and Republican, and manages to get things done. That is what being a politician is about. Promoting one's agenda, but also getting things done. Empty rhetoric doesn't help anyone.
Last edited by Loki; 12-26-2015 at 02:03 AM.
Hope is the denial of reality
I'm not going to take time to defend Cruz since he's not my first (or 2nd) pick. However I'll maintain he is significantly better than Trump, I could see myself voting for him but I could NEVER see myself voting for that egotistical ass.
Trump may be 25% over Rubio but how many of those voters will go to the primaries? In later states how many folks will be left? You either love Trump (why??? WHY???) or hate him, there isn't any in between. So as the field narrows it plays to the advantage of EVERYONE else. Cruz has a good shot of winning Iowa. Trump isn't dropping. If some more of the no chance folks drop out there support will gravitate toward Rubio. Again... that's my hope.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/matthews-...zergnet_825764
Not a fan of Matthews but it was a legit question. Trump however is scared to answer because if he says Obama isn't legitimate because he wasn't a US citizen he looks like a birther. If he says he is legitimate he loses with the people currently in his camp (the idiotic faction of the Republican party). So much for the tough guy with the straight talk. Guy can't even answer a simple and legitimate question.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/up...-democrat.html Some interesting data here.
Hope is the denial of reality
So are we going to rename the thread to TRUMP PALIN 2016 any time soon? Would be so much fun.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
Kasich is in second-place in New Hampshire across multiple polls. What's surprising, actually, is Trump is polling first. Which makes me think the polling is garbage.
Let us all pray Trumpites don't vote. Because I kinda think and hope they don't.
Okay, boys, what are the odds on
1. Trump vs. Sanders
2. Trump vs. Clinton
3. Trump has an "accident"
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
In other words.....it's no wonder that 'establishment' party politics, and the voting electorate that's mostly sick of politics-as usual, are butting heads. It would be interesting if both (R) and (D) "anti-establishment" candidates are nominated, and the general election is Trump vs Sanders.
I believe this is an expression of what psychiatrists call "the orange triad":
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...clear-weapons/
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Bloomberg = Wreck of Trump vs Clinton.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Or is it Bloomberg vs Trump vs Clinton...
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
If, god forbid, Trump actually gets the GOP nomination, do you reckon one of the others will join as a third party nominee?
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Signed not to only goes so far when reality sets in. It's not like it's a binding contract is it? I imagine a number of prominent GOP members would prefer a more.. presidential candidate. Let's face it, that promise was meant to prevent right wing candidates ruining the election for them with tea party candidates, not to keep them in.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
True but at the same time, none of them really have the heft to successfully run as a third-party candidate, not after losing to Trump. So it would end up being a deliberate attack on the GOP voters and nomination process, deliberately trying to hand the election to the Democrats, and would sink the person's career. It can be pulled off in lesser races, particularly by incumbents, but not this general presidential election.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Fair enough. Though losing a primary doesn't mean you don't have a better shot in a general election (if the center doesn't vote as much in the primary). And if, say, Sanders wins the other nomination there'd be a lot of votes up for grabs in the center, right? (Not that he's expected to win the nomination anyway)
On a side note, if a party's nominee is someone the party doesn't want.. what are that candidate and those who voted for him doing in that party in the first place. A two party system never ceases to amaze me
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
A lot of states also have laws banning those who stood in primaries from standing or appearing on ballot papers as independents I believe. So good look winning a campaign without your party backing and not even being on every ballot paper.
At least with a two party system you know what you're getting before the election and we're normally good at weeding out the Trumps and Corbyn's before they reach office, either in the party stage or the general election stage. With a plethora party system its harder to sift out those undesirables. To win in the US you have to win both the primary and the national election, winning the first one without the other achieves nothing.
[QUOTE=Flixy;169620]Fair enough. Though losing a primary doesn't mean you don't have a better shot in a general election (if the center doesn't vote as much in the primary).
Running without the formal support of the party pretty much does mean that though. You'd need to build your own nation-spanning GOTV effort, for instance, and in not all that much time. There are a whole lot of obstacles. In many respects someone who didn't participate in the primary stands a better chance because they wouldn't have been expecting to have this established support system from the party to draw on for the general election. Anyone who decides to continue campaigning despite losing the primary would be a lot further behind, trying to expand and prolong the network built from their primary bid in ways they hadn't anticipated. And no one in the GOP primary now is exactly a screaming centrist either. "At least I'm not Trump" is not the best motivational message to get a large moderate bloc to participate rather than just stay home.
The parties aren't exactly centralized monoliths. They're aggregations of state parties and even many of those are more collections of county lists than a central organization. US political parties are coordinators and facilitators. The candidate is in that party because they can use it. And the party would have no problem with Trump or anyone else out there just being members, people making donations, proferring their vote, etc. which means they don't have much of a leg to stand on for objecting when the person turns things around and uses them in turn.On a side note, if a party's nominee is someone the party doesn't want.. what are that candidate and those who voted for him doing in that party in the first place. A two party system never ceases to amaze me
I'm not aware of any state that has such a law and I can't see it being enforceable if they do. The parties have ZERO official standing and cannot restrict who may run for general election. You can maybe have a law that FORCES them to run as an Independent and without any label indicating they're in the party whose primary they ran in, but that's as far as I think it can go.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
"Sore loser laws" do exist Fuzzy, though how easily they could be enforced would likely be a matter for the courts. Gary Johnson was prevented by Michigan law in 2012 from appearing on the ballot paper due to running in the Republic primary. EDIT: Although that was due to him wanting to use another parties label, Ohio has other laws and so on.
Though it looks like it is "some states" and not "a lot" that have sore loser laws for Presidential elections.