TRUMP 2016

[LittleFuzzy]

It's either a circus or clown show. Go, go USA!

I've demeaned the use of polls/surveys for a long time. It's even more disturbing that
Fox News has used those polls to decide who'd show up on the first televised Republican "debate".

WTF is going on?

What? It's not like we've hit a better mark for winnowing the field yet. How else do you want to do it? Or is it that you object to Trump getting any attention at all? He uses his money and media presence to buy attention, it's not like it has meaning, anymore than the Kardashians do. And he'll get about as far. You can't actually weed out the ridiculous candidates until the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire, not if they have money and the inclination to waste it this way. Since Trump did this last time, and with the Independents before that, he apparently feels he gets something out of it and maybe he's right. Maybe the profile boost actually generates a profit for his other enterprises.

[GGT]

What? It's not like we've hit a better mark for winnowing the field yet. How else do you want to do it? Or is it that you object to Trump getting any attention at all? He uses his money and media presence to buy attention, it's not like it has meaning, anymore than the Kardashians do. And he'll get about as far. You can't actually weed out the ridiculous candidates until the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire, not if they have money and the inclination to waste it this way. Since Trump did this last time, and with the Independents before that, he apparently feels he gets something out of it and maybe he's right. Maybe the profile boost actually generates a profit for his other enterprises.

I'm not convinced that the best way to "winnow" the field is by using early caucus states in the first place. Iowa and New Hampshire aren't very good representatives of the nation as a whole. Neither is Florida, or the Carolinas, or Ohio for that matter.

One good thing Trump has highlighted.....is how fucked up our election processes are, and that our two-party political system isn't working so well in the 21st century.

[LittleFuzzy]

I'm not convinced that the best way to "winnow" the field is by using early caucus states in the first place. Iowa and New Hampshire aren't very good representatives of the nation as a whole. Neither is Florida, or the Carolinas, or Ohio for that matter.

One good thing Trump has highlighted.....is how fucked up our election processes are, and that our two-party political system isn't working so well in the 21st century.

They don't need to be good representatives of the nation as a whole. No state is a good representative of the nation as a whole. Pennsylvania certainly isn't. But if you can't draw up a decent run in either of those two rather soft states, how are you supposed to do so elsewhere? Anyway, as I have repeatedly tried to explain to you in the past, none of this is actually a working of the US government or its election system. It's an activity by and for political parties, private (albeit quite large) organizations of people around loose collections of political ideas working together to try and collectively get each others views eventually made into public policy.

Our "two party system" isn't a formal system. It's an ad-hoc arrangement. A long-lasting one, but one that has no formal status. If people don't like it, they're free to stop participating and apply themselves to some other route.

[GGT]

They don't need to be good representatives of the nation as a whole. No state is a good representative of the nation as a whole. Pennsylvania certainly isn't. But if you can't draw up a decent run in either of those two rather soft states, how are you supposed to do so elsewhere?

Anyway, as I have repeatedly tried to explain to you in the past, none of this is actually a working of the US government or its election system. It's an activity by and for political parties, private (albeit quite large) organizations of people around loose collections of political ideas working together to try and collectively get each others views eventually made into public policy.

I've repeatedly tried to say the same thing. But when I lament the use of Big Money and its control over the political process, it's no consolation when "compromise" is used as a dirty word.

Our "two party system" isn't a formal system. It's an ad-hoc arrangement. A long-lasting one, but one that has no formal status. If people don't like it, they're free to stop participating and apply themselves to some other route.

What alternative "route" do you mean?