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

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

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Close thread.

"trumpism" is definitely an ideology. protectionist economy + severe restrictions on immigration is the policy platform, barely concealed white nationalism and blatant anti-islamic bias is the mood xp

oh yeah, and deals.

xxp Good to know.

donald trump is not going to be the republican nominee

- everyone, summer 2015

^^^^

- everyone else, summer 2015

i predict that scalia will die in February 2016 and that the republicans will refuse to participate in the process to appoint his successor. also the royals will win the world series over the mets in 5 games

- me, summer 2015

http://rs279.pbsrc.com/albums/kk143/faeini1/CrystalBallHands.gif~c200

Be careful what you wish for.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, February 26, 2016 10:58 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow ominous

national review is willing to use the rabble, but is deeply afraid of populism

‏@dick_nixon
Rubio showed a basic command of English, so now he is "strong." When in reality he looked like a guy trying to save his keys from the sewer.

I defy those of you who count Rubio as winning tonight to name a single thing he or anyone else did that would cause Trump to lose votes.

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

― curmudgeon, Friday, February 26, 2016 11:00 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they thought he wld just go away and didnt realize until it was prob too late that they had to make him go away, if republicans had spent the last three months talking about what a piece of shit he is i suspect the race wld look different now

best moment of the election cycle so far was christie's attempted murder-suicide of rubio. such an arbitrary target

lol poor rubes

I wonder if that was sort of spur-of-the-moment or if he regrets it. If you watch the clip, it doesn't feel like Christie started out wanting to go for the kill, it's more like Rubio set himself up and instinct set in. And then he dropped out soon after. I doubt Christie had an interest in clearing a path for Trump.

r u kidding? it was a true "you're going over the cliff with me, sonny" moment

Hardly arbitrary though - everyone was talking about rubio/christie/jeb/kasich as "only one will survive"

more stupid than arbitrary. the best way christie could have distinguished himself was by humiliating trump. he was the only other skilled bully in the field

the rest are just a bunch of weasels

Hardly arbitrary though - everyone was talking about rubio/christie/jeb/kasich as "only one will survive"

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, February 26, 2016 11:32 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah but he took out Rubio and then dropped out. So unless he backed Kasich or Jeb it makes little sense from any broader strategic point of view. Unless he really still thought he had a shot, and I doubt it.

If you watch the clip, it doesn't feel like Christie started out wanting to go for the kill, it's more like Rubio set himself up and instinct set in.

Agree. Christie is exactly the kind of bullying dickbag who can't not punch someone who's displaying weakness. I could totally picture him in high school walking down the hall and shoving some smaller kid into a locker without even breaking stride, just because obviously you hit someone like that, because what else are they there for?

http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/christie-hs.jpg

Why'd you hit yourself?

er

http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/christie-hs.jpg

is he wearing a tablecloth?

i had that sweater

it's amazing to me that christie's only material achievement in this race as been to cut marco rubio's hamstrings and hand trump and even bigger margin in NH.

― goole, Wednesday, February 10, 2016 12:27 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think everyone who lives/lived in a northern state owned that sweater at one time or another

chris christie was on fame, that's great

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?

Both and: they do want to win, but they would prefer for someone like them to do the winning.

I have seen some righties saying something like: things are about to get really bad. When the country goes down the tubes, they'd prefer Democrat fingerprints to be on the disaster, so some future Republican can ride in as a sensible savior, saying "we told you so."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CcJ4ft6W4AAoLf7.jpg

lol marco

rubes goin in https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/703257334588514305

i feel like trump is going to rhetorically beat the shit out of him during the next debate. he seemed to be blindsided a bit during last night's debate

‏@samsteinhp
George HW Bush showed up at the debate last night. He probably didn’t recognize the GOP he saw

@ggreenwald
Please. His campaign manager was Lee Atwater and he won with Willie Horton ads.

mocking trump seems like the right tact since hes a buffoon

Cooke asks you to consider your loins, Agincourt, and Churchill.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/431982/donald-trump-republican-debate-its-not-too-little-too-late

rubes goin in https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/703257334588514305

― lag∞n, Friday, February 26, 2016 11:42 AM (2 minutes ago)

hahaha yesss more of this

weird to me that they dont just refer to him as "reality tv star the donald"

tv business man donald trump

repeatedly bankrupt rich kid donald trump

the orange mad boy

Yeah but he took out Rubio and then dropped out. So unless he backed Kasich or Jeb it makes little sense from any broader strategic point of view. Unless he really still thought he had a shot, and I doubt it.

Sure, but there was a primary inbetween - so his train of thought* would have gone "Take my shot, see if they still see a little of the loud bully that they loved a year ago" - then they don't - so he goes. I don't imagine he was thinking "This will be the end of my run" when he went for Rubio.

* I agree it might have been instinctive - no matter.

Poppy was at the debate? Was he booed?

i liked the post debate interview with trump where he suggested his christian faith might be the reason he is a target of frequent auditing

The illiterate part of bullshit filler like this column is how "It wasn't George H.W. Bush's party" in 1980 either.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republican-debate-george-hw-bush_us_56cfe02ce4b0bf0dab31a658?q3ahsemi=

i liked when trump said he wasnt going to leave people to die in the street and cruz started repeating whos gonna pay for it as if he had come up w the best own

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKaUVfUufOg

xp, lol that was also classic