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

Still, watching (some) of these things, I am beginning to believe that Trump could hurt Clinton in a debate more than she can hurt him. He doesn't even really "debate," as such, just immaturely deflect, insult, dismiss, etc.. ("I know you are but what am I?") There are often no logical responses to his outbursts, just retorts, and that would only work to her disadvantage. I'm not even sure what she would attack him on - his lack of political experience? Which opens her up to attacks on her past statements, mis-votes, allegiance to moneyed interests, et al. Don't know if Sanders would win, but I'm starting to think he'd do better, rhetorically, against Trump than Clinton. Who can obviously still win, mathematically, but I have a bad feeling strategically she and her campaign are ill-suited for a non-intellectual street brawl, and it would show.

I'm relatively confident it would look awful for Trump to condescend to a woman; the attacks on Fiorina were the only things that halted his climb last fall.

Yeah Clinton doesn't have to do much except appear to be the adult in the room. I don't think Trump's antics play as well outside the Fox New/Rush set.

My gut says Clinton does better against Trump than Bernie does, because the gender dynamics would be so stark. So easy to cast Trump as everybody's worst blowhard boss/ex/father-in-law/whatever. (I also think any Democrat will walk all over Trump electorally, no matter what the polls say right now, but obviously predictions this year are pretty worthless.)

When they debate, Hillary should hire Rosie O'Donnell to occasionally peek out from behind a curtain and wave at Donald to get him fired up.

Laughter would be a good response to Trump in a one-on-one debate. Hillary should just laugh and laugh every time he opens his mouth, and then begin each of her responses with, "Listen, you stupid fuck..." or "Holy shit, did you really just say that out loud? OK..."

another overlooked moment was when Trump, at the very end of an exchange with Cruz, yelled "he's a zealot!" Cruz just kind of stuck his hands out and opened his mouth as if to respond but couldn't think of anything in time, and then wolf asked another question and it was over. the crowd didn't even respond. it was kind of amazing.

Hard to imagine him arguing...

Mr Trump says he will save $300 billion from Medicare (the government health-care scheme for the elderly) by buying drugs more cheaply. Alas, total Medicare spending on drugs is likely to average $111 billion annually over the next decade. Aggregate American spending on drugs (public and private) is around $300 billion a year, says the CRFB. Perhaps Mr Trump thinks he can persuade the pharmaceutical companies to give their product away: the “art of the deal” in action.

it's weird how much more shameless he is than every other shameless politician

I caught a few minutes of the debate last night before my fiancé made me turn it off.

"Mr. Trump, how do you feel about this Telemundo poll saying Hispanics don't like you."

"I don't believe Telemundo." *audience seems to chuckle* "I employ lots of Hispanics."

I don't know what people here don't understand about modern Republicans (not *wingnuts*) that makes that a perfectly good answer to them

Cruz is running an ad in Texas featuring testimonial from Governor Greg "Wheels" Abbott and boasting the tag TrusTED.

of course followed by, "I love Telemundo," or something

x-post

trump only has 6.39 million twitter followers. maybe people are right about his slice of the electorate being smaller than it seems

for a point of comparison, katy perry has 83 million followers on twitter.

xxp Wait, you mean that we think that is, or isn't, a good answer?

i mean a good answer to modern (non *wingnut*) Republicans.

it's a "dogwhistle" type way to say that the opinions of hispanics don't matter

xp

republicans will turn out for trump due to their actual ideology, when all is said and done: the government can and should be run like a business

― rap is dad (it's a boy!)

I hope Katy Perry is our first female president.

trump only has 6.39 million twitter followers. maybe people are right about his slice of the electorate being smaller than it seems

― spirited ai weiwei (Treeship), Friday, February 26, 2016 9:58 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for a point of comparison, katy perry has 83 million followers on twitter.

not sure what this says about anything, but:

trump: 6.39m
clinton: 5.49m
sanders: 1.52m
rubio: 1.23m
carson: 1.15m (!!!)
cruz: 849k (he also has another verified account for his senatorial stuff with 700k or so, probably mostly the same people)
jeb!: 489k (also he needs to update his profile description to let people know he's back to just making money again)
kasich: 191k

Jim Gilmore?

4,480.

in the past few hours, trump has posted two tweets describing marco rubio as a "chocker"

he tried to get his account verified but can't get twitter to respond to his messages

nah, just kidding. he has 4,480 followers

xpost

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chockers&defid=3880404

he also mentioned that he won the debate according to "every poll" and it's a "great honer"

lol curtis

So what I don't really get is this. Is the National Review crowd so fervently anti-Trump because a) they think he would be a bad President, or b) they think his nomination would mean the Democrats would win up and down the ticket? Or is it both?

Clinton is so (seemingly) phony and (definitely) calculating that I really do think trying to out maneuver Trump on stage would be like trying to fight a rabid dog. He's got nothing to lose and steamrolls right over any facts/arguments. His strategy is to just shut things down, either via insult or by stonewalling. Meanwhile, her amped laugh is, shall we say, not her strongest suit - does Trump ever laugh? just that grimace, right? - and when Clinton gets tough she both ends up over-exaggerating for effect and hurting some of her lefty support. Plus, they've travelled in similar social/economic circles for some time, which makes her look worse than it does Trump. And Trump I don't thing will pull punches because he's debating a woman, especially since it hasn't really hurt him so far.

As has seemed likely from the start but definitely the last few months, Dem turnout will be key to Clinton's victory, not anything she says or doesn't say to counter Trump. They're both known quantities, in a sense, at different ends of the DGAF spectrum. And further to that point, getting back the senate is essential. I wish there was more noise on that front.

(Like, how does she counter Trump and not come off like Gore in that first debate v. Bush?)

xp eephus, a.) primarily, but also c.) his nomination would signal a "sea-change" in republican voters' priorities, and trumpism will replace conservatism as the party's guiding ideology

they've travelled in similar social/economic circles for some time, which makes her look worse than it does Trump

dingdingding

yeah, i don't think it's a given that clinton would better trump in a debate, and i definitely think it's unwise to view that outcome as a certainty, as a lot of people seem to do.

i felt like trump was crushed last night, but apparently exit polls are saying trump won?

that's his great honer

That's just it, by the standards of facts and logic he's been terrible from the start, and that's why people said he wouldn't last. But clearly he is not doomed, or failing, or falling, he's thriving. And betting, after all these months, that this consistent trend will somehow suddenly stalls seems like a huge strategic risk.

are you people really, REALLY not getting an ice-cream headache from all this shit, with about 35 weeks to go? where is your breaking point?

Hillary just needs to ditch the policy positions and get a coach to help her out-bloviate the Don. "Mr. Trump has talked a lot about his health care plan. But it's a weak plan for losers. Total trash. My plan is the one that will make America great again. It's sensational. Just fantastic."

http://i.imgur.com/BYzvc2V.png

Is the Dem party really content just let the dust settle before trying to bring him down? I'd really like to think they have a plan, but I have a feeling they're focused on short term goals. Now seems like the time to try and hurt him, because it won't seem like it's coming directly from Clinton, with so many competitors in play.

democrats badly want him to win the nom

xp eephus, a.) primarily, but also c.) his nomination would signal a "sea-change" in republican voters' priorities, and trumpism will replace conservatism as the party's guiding ideology

Eh, many republican voters' priorities are dying, Trump is propping it up (and yeah turnout is a big worry - down in all the Democratic contests so far, up in all of Republican) but his fans are, well, his fans - they won't stick around once he goes, the question is whether he's done enough damage to their other bases.

I mean, wtf is Trumpism other than a belief in him as a Great Man.

d) is that NRO considers itself classy.

Yeah I don't buy that "trumpism" is an "ideology" -- it's more just like the pure id of the frustrated.

democrats badly want him to win the nom

i felt like trump was crushed last night, but apparently exit polls are saying trump won?

yeah, it's so hard to get a good read on who "won", because even to the extent that policies and facts came up, they really just don't matter. so throw that out the window. (america!) then there's the audience reaction, the cheering and clapping and booing, but that's also misleading because it's not like the crowd is a representative sample. after one of the recent GOP debates when trump repeatedly claimed that the crowd (which seemed anti-trump for sure) was full of RNC operatives and lobbyists, it turned out that he was actually correct. i don't know if that was true of last night as well, but it wouldn't be surprising. even if you try to ignore the crowd's reaction, it's hard not to be swayed a bit, but it's misleading. then there's the way the media spins it post-debate. the NYT headline is "G.O.P. Debate Turns Raucous as Rubio Lays Into Trump", with this lede: "Senator Marco Rubio, responding to the rise of Donald J. Trump, delivered the onslaught that Republican leaders had desperately awaited." well...yeah, rubio did attempt to lay into trump and mentioned some things that should have been mentioned months ago, like Trump University. and just observing the debate, i did think "wow rubio's finally trying to stand up to him a little". but they're really ignoring the reality of trump's advantages right now, which i think josh marshall summed up pretty well:

Let's state the point clearly: Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz failed utterly to put a dent in Donald Trump or his seemingly clear path to the Republican nomination. In their defense, it was a huge challenge. If Trump does as well on Tuesday as the current polls suggest, he will likely be unstoppable. Not necessarily because the numbers will make him inevitable but because the pageantry of winning will continue to elevate Trump and overwhelm Rubio and Cruz. To prevent that, one or the other needed to land a devastating blow - something on the level of what Chris Christie did to Rubio before New Hampshire. Frankly, it needed to be even worse. They didn't come close.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-s-dominating-performance

Republican candidates never really went after Trump before though either. Why did Rubio wait till last night to go after Trump?

Washington Post columnist says Rubio won the debate last night, but that's an opinion not an audience poll

donald trump is not going to be president