I will keep doing, but not worth it! The 2016 Presidential Primary Voting Thread

Why is the party establishment so much more enamored with Rubio than Kasich? Is Rubio just closer to the party backers' ideology or is it a misguided belief that he can be some kind of mirror of Obama, a "young fresh face" with some nominal chance of increasing the GOP's appeal to the minority group that everyone says is their demographic problem? I don't know if Kasich is a brilliant politician, but he comes off a lot better than Rubio, and I'd give him more of a fighting chance against Clinton.

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Saturday, February 20, 2016 10:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think the "establishment" means anything any more, even the "party establishment." Even so, Kasich is too much of an iconoclast, which may be a euphemism for a little nutty; that is, he's neither sufficiently controllable nor self-controlled. I've been skeptical throughout that the GOP would nominate a youthful Cuban-American, whatever their overestimation of his attractiveness, and remain so. But not sure that a Catholic-raised/Protestant-convert Czech-Croatian-American is any more in the party's old, white, non-"ethnic" Protestant male mainstream, which is why I've been skeptical throughout that the voters would go with the guy who comes closest to the folksiness and faux-compassionate-conservatism of W (few of whose Southern "manners" he possesses), for whom an angrier party seems to have little use now. Kicking his brother, a Catholic convert with a Mexican-American wife who likes his economic royalism without a side of explicit racism, to the curb, and pulling ahead of the homophobic, anti-semitic, half-Cuban/half-Irish-Italian Southern Baptist nut in second place, it's the oldest, most racist, faux-religious and everything else but truest WASP (half-British-/half-German-American) who's running away with this thing (at least until the big metros start voting; we'll see), as far as anyone can in a race in which no one much tops 1/3 of the vote. It's a party that, if it does not come apart, is showing its true face, one that Kasich doesn't much represent on the surface.

I will not post in this useless thread
I will not post in this useless thread
I will not post in this useless thread

ty

Still time for Mitt, but he's too busy either overestimating Marco or being undesirous of going through this shit again

rescinded

lmao mitt is not entering the race, come on

Could a 'normal' republican considerably mount an independent bid to counter Trump?

That's what the Rubio campaign figures, but he's not normal. He's a neo con wannabe with an imbecile's mien and a toddler's stammer.

like if Trump gets the GOP nom can a "normal" one run as an independent?

i would think so. where are they going to find a normal Republican in 2016 though? draft Pataki?

If there were all these normal Republicans waiting in the wings, and their ideas were actually popular with Republicans, wouldn't they have thrown their hats in the ring along with the other seventeen people who were running for president last year? Nothing was stopping them, surely. Anyone towards the Pataki end of the spectrum, and this basically includes Jeb, has nothing really compelling to offer in a general election versus Clinton. The only way I could see it making sense is if Sanders somehow became the Dem nominee, and there was a sense that he was too far left for most Americans and some sort of blah centrist could swing a win in a three-way race.

Quality ethnography from gabbs yet again

Xxp

Dolores Huerta doubling down on her claims from last night: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/20/dolores-huerta-says-she-was-shouted-down-with-english-only-chants-from-a-sanders-crowd/ I can't hear anyone shouting 'English only', that seems to be the conclusion from the moderator?

can a "normal" one run as an independent?

The two parties have set up an incredibly tortuous path for an independent candidate to get onto all 50 state ballots. Starting late makes it all but impossible.

And unfortunately for Sanders's supporters, there's video that at the very least backs up Huerta's assertion that there was a lot of shouting and hissing while she was on stage at a Nevada caucus location. A caucus organizer had called for an interpreter willing to explain the process and latest updates to Spanish-speaking caucus-goers. Huerta, clad in a Clinton campaign T-shirt, volunteered.

incredible reporting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lOL2h8F3aA

Can we kickstart an Odd Couple remake where we force Morbs and Gabbneb to live together for a year?

God. There's definitely no group chant of "English only". What is being shouted is largely unintelligible on that video, but from context it sounds like Sanders' supporters are protesting that she is likely to distort the message pro-Hillary and they won't be able to tell it's happening. it's the Moderator who says "We're going to continue in English only" after he tries to bring order to the crowd without success for about 2 minutes, and then asks the people sitting with their Spanish company to translate for them.

Which is one reason their objections were kind of stupid - no matter who translated, whether it was Huerta or people in the audience translating for their friends, anybody had the opportunity to 'slant' the message in translation any way they wanted to, and no doubt any non-Hillary supporter in the crowd fluent in Spanish would have picked up quickly if that's what Huerta did.

So yes, Sanders' supporters were being petulant dicks, but that quote above pissed me off too because it's basically equating a mob "English only" racist chant with a bunch of one candidate's supporters being shrill assholes at a caucus. Both behaviors are bad, but one is far, far worse than the other.

it's entirely possible that someone in the crowd shouted "English only" ad hoc, but hardly a group effort as all I heard was hissing and "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO".

however I do agree those people now attacking Huerta and Ferrera on the net can go fuck themselves.

Can we kickstart an Odd Couple remake where we force Morbs and Gabbneb to live together for a year?

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Sunday, February 21, 2016 3:22 PM (1 hour ago)

Throw in amateurist and I'll give a hundred bucks.

With Jeb out, I expect Trump to turn the flamethrower on Rubio full strength. It's gonna be disgusting, and I kinda can't wait.

Trump's writers are working around the clock retooling Jeb! zingers into Rubio ones.

Jeb/Trump Odd Couple skit writes itself.

Rubio!

bangarang

I look forward to trump giving Rubio the jeb treatment. Gonna be savage.

― carthago delenda est (mayor jingleberries), Sunday, February 21, 2016 2:03 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have to wonder why he hasn't already though -- don't see how "pick off the weaker enemy first" makes sense as a strategy in primary politics.

bullies bully the most easily bullied

if by "most easily bullied" you mean "most fun to bully", then i agree. (jeb takes the bait, he's awkward, etc).

Jeb may be a bully's delight, but Rubio is the real coward. after Graham and Fiorina left the stage, Jeb has been the only one to openly challenge Trump. Rubio, by contrast, has assiduously avoided any confrontation, unless you count his "I like GWB" moment in the last debate.

if Rubio had been the one criticizing Trump instead of Jeb throughout these debates, I'm pretty sure he would have been the punching bag

It has 100% been in Trump's interest to leave Rubio alone as his numbers rose to where they are now - tied with Cruz, but both of them comfortably below Trump. I don't know if Trump really is capable of scheming realpolitik or if he's just a spoiled racist shithead running on pure ego and id. But if he's been reading any analysis all along, he has to know that the last thing he wants is for the field to narrow early into a two-person race because then he loses (see the "low ceiling" argument). A large field helps him, and picking on people near the bottom risks being the straw that drives them out of the race. I think with Bush he just couldn't stop himself even though it was long since clear that Jeb was a terminal case.

Fwiw the markets have Rubio back to nearly level with trump http://predictwise.com/blog/2016/02/state-of-republican-primary-after-three-primary-votes/, with crux a very distant 3rd (presumably because of his impossible delegate math)

asking out of ignorance, why is cruz's delegate math so impossible?

He's naturally strong in v few winner takes all states iirc

Evangelicals have low sperms count

Eg http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ted-cruz-has-a-huge-math-problem/

ooooh yeah. so rubios is stronger in some of the winner take all states i take it

Rubio seems a slender reed to attach all the non-Trump hopes to, but I guess it has to be someone.

Angry conservatives, especially single-issue anti-immigration types, have no use for Rubio. What I'm seeing from the torches-and-pitchforks crowd is either "Trump or I stay home," "Cruz or I stay home," and sometimes "Trump or Cruz or I stay home."
If Rubio is the ostensibly moderate, "sane" Republican choice, I think the none-of-the-above / staying home vote becomes a significant player.

These are the dudes who feel they're perpetually stabbed in the back by the GOP; they dutifully voted for the mushy milquetoast moderates McCain and Romney, but are vowing "never again." Even against Bernie or Hillary.

rubio is really the worst of both worlds. he's not a moderate at all- he's a tea party candidate- and only gets off looking that way in comparison to cruz and trump. at the same time he lacks genuine populist appeal and hasn't done much to distinguish himself from, say, bobby jindal. as far as the angry conservatives staying home, i'm not buying it. the issue is that they won't be staying home, because we can assume that one of the candidates on the ballot this november will be trump, one way or another.

rushomancy speaks truth:

he's not a moderate at all- he's a tea party candidate- and only gets off looking that way in comparison to cruz and trump.

Agreed. Mainly he's seen to be squishy on immigration / amnesty, which in the Year of Trump is the only thing that matters. He was in the infamous Gang of 8. He's said to have been saying one thing in Spanish to Univision, but a different thing entirely in English to Fox, drawing comparisons to Arafat.

Fortunately the Beltway press isn't referring to Rubio as a moderate anymore – they refer to him as the electable one.

By and large my Facebook feed is pretty nut-free, but occasionally I come across some real loons when I read comments on friend feeds. This morning I saw someone post a recent article by some Harvard person sort of comparing Trump to Hitler as a means to describe how dangerous demagogues can slip through the cracks of a relatively civil society to positions of powers. I think the title of the piece was something subtle, like "Trump Must be Stopped!!!!' Anyway, the third comment down was from this apparent friend of the friend who wrote (I'll just quote, more or less): "I'm not for Trump but will hold my nose and vote for him over Hillary or Sanders any day. That being said, it's amazing how you could replace Trump with Obama and read it and think the same thing. I guess it's just what side of the fence you're on." And this kind of equivalency really gets to the heart of what is probably a crisis of national psychosis, that someone could really see tread-carefully Obama as every bit as bad as Id-unleashed Trump, so much so that it's Obama who is considered the Hitler-level threat, so horrific that it's Trump - Trump! - who appears the only hope. It's like black is white, up is down world. You have one guy literally saying we should build a wall between us and Mexico, deport millions, ban Muslims from entering the US, bomb our enemies indiscriminately and torture their families. And the other who brings about better health care, doesn't want kids shooting each other, tries to be fair-minded to immigrants and minorities, and he's the Hitler? It's just insane. Like, clinically so.

this is why America deserves its own Trump hell

yep. i think clinton would trounce trump in the general, but if it does come down to those two, there's a non-zero chance it could be trump. crazy stuff happens, a scandal could pop up, the economy could crash and a bunch of people would think "trump is a businessman, he's the perfect person to handle this!", etc. and there's the fact that nearly everyone claimed with certainty (warning sign) last year that trump had no chance and would be gone by september. so yeah, the odds are stacked enormously in clinton's favor, but it's by no means a certainty that she would defeat trump, and that scares the living shit out of me

this is why America deserves its own Trump hell

I think we're already in it, and Trump is basically the ugly boil popping up its head.

I am starting to think America'll get it.

What Karl said times a billion. I'm already creating a potential exit strategy, hopefully to be implemented before the country is completely walled-in.

Josh in Chi refers to this piece:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/moment-of-truth-we-must-stop-trump/2016/02/21/0172e788-d8a7-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

that someone could really see tread-carefully Obama as every bit as bad as Id-unleashed Trump, so much so that it's Obama who is considered the Hitler-level threat, so horrific that it's Trump - Trump! - who appears the only hope

Yeah and it can be bracingly instructive to alt-tab from that world over to sites where Obama is seen as excessively timid, or as just another warmonger bought by corporations.

See also "What a Divided America Actually Hears"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-a-divided-america-actually-hears-when-obama-speaks/2016/02/13/b3c020a2-ce9a-11e5-88cd-753e80cd29ad_story.html

tries to be fair-minded to immigrants

all-time champion Deporter-in-Chief

#MorbsBaitWorks

http://snoreandguzzle.com/images/parallax3.jpg

I'm having my bathroom remodeled, and over the weekend there was a guy who came in to do the tile work. We were chatting, and he told me he's voting for Trump or nobody, and that Clinton is a murderer. Then he told me that evolution was bullshit and that the nephilim were responsible for almost all of the technological advancements of mankind, but they've been breeding with humans for so long that they are no longer giants and incapable of miraculous invention nowadays. He wasn't even excited about any of this, just casual chatting like we were discussing the weather. I really wanted to know what he thought about Obama, but not as much as I wanted him to finish tiling the bath.