Il Douché and His Discontents: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 4

Rick Santorum managed to win 11 states

i somehow forgot this happened

the republican party has been so craven my entire lifetime that i still would not be shocked if they fell in line behind nominee Trump but it really does seem like he is unacceptable to about 30% of the party and not in a way that can be resolved - his policy positions are too divergent from the things the party considers important (like small government ideology) and it seems [surprisingly to me] like a bunch of them really do mind explicit+overt bigotry.

if he makes it that far they're going to hammer trump so hard in the general yeah. play it next to some footage of Hillary talking to kids, "smiling", writing on some pieces of paper. three things trump actually afaik has never done.

I have no doubt that if Trump's primary-era comments get glossed over/forgotten it will only be because he starts saying even more loathsome shit during the general

if every big name Republican comes out massively, unequivocally against Trump (like Romney did on Twitter a couple days back) does that somehow work in Trump's favour?

also re hillary matchup i think he's going to look terrible attacking hillary if she can keep her cool. he'll look like a bully (i think the meagan kelly spat was an early indicator that it won't play well with most ppl). and i think she is going to dance circles around him intellectually + in terms of policy. he'll come off looking like a mean, stupid snake oil salesman and dems will take house and congress, stack the supreme court, and enjoy the hillary experience for 8 years before the inauguration of elizabeth warren.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-not-long-killed-trump-rally-article-1.2549868?cid=bitly

I don't think any serious Democrat intends to just sit back and hope Trump's negatives will sink him. Plans to both actively oppose and cleverly undermine him.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/03/01/democrats-are-taking-the-trump-threat-very-very-seriously-theyre-right/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

I know part of the standard dig against Hillary is that she was expecting coronation, but so far she's had to campaign everywhere and work for votes. If she is the nominee I don't think she's going to sit back and stay on cruise control till November. Ditto Sanders if he should be the nominee, he'd put up a spirited, smart, relentless campaign.

Either way, Trump has supplied his opponents with plenty of material, plus he seems unlikely to suddenly stop and become a cuddly statesmanlike figure.

it really does seem like he is unacceptable to about 30% of the party and not in a way that can be resolved

seems to me his biggest problem isn't the bigotry, it's that the money guys who have bankrolled the GOP (Kochs, Adelson, Chamber of Commerce, etc.) really don't like/trust him. He's gonna take away all their cheap undocumented labor! And raise their taxes! And make them pay for universal healthcare! etc. Trump has to win those guys over and/or convince them he can be negotiated with or otherwise tamed. Which may happen, idk.

xp

how shitty Trump is - based not only on his primary shenanigans, but on his lengthy pre-campaign career

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--FyXPVuk---/a1e0lul3thq1zmgdlw7q.jpg

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-MF114_TrumpC_G_20160121110643.jpg

the hat!

lol @ Giuliani

and is that Fred Thompson on Bubba's right?

but seriously who among us hasn't golfed with the occasional fascist demogogue

http://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/SinisterSix_Spider-Man.jpg

http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/hitler-invitational-inside-adolf-hitlers-1936-golf-tournament

that's Joe Torre.

re Bernie, i wonder if some version of the Erica Garner ad ran throughout the South, for starters (i imagine it must've?). Have any Sanders people spoken anonymously about where their outreach to A-A voters failed, cuz it seemed 3 weeks ago they knew it was the achilles heel.

My perception is that Bernie Sanders isn't going to reach black voters in the deep Deep South just by coming to Atlanta and having Killer Mike introduce him. He could have at least brought his message to Macon and Valdosta, places where white Trump supporters have held some of their most vicious rallies. He could have gone to Hancock County, the poorest and blackest county in Georgia. He needs to offer himself to rural black voters. I'm no political strategist though. I know these places are tougher to gauge & have less political return than hitting up the big cities.

There's also the possibility that Killer Mike isn't recognized by rural black southern voters.

how many Pitchfork writers live in northern Arkansas

thx crut

Bloomberg is literally clenching his sphincter in that pic

is that Billy Crystal at the, ahem, far right?

There's also the possibility that Killer Mike isn't recognized by rural black southern voters.

Well, yeah.

i would still rather golf with Trump than with Billy Crystal fwiw

xp

xpost I know at least one who used to live in Fayetteville!

one of the best things about this primary imo is seeing how the new voting blocks obama brought in in 2008 + 2012 appear to be ongoing + permanent w/ v high levels of black voter participation. bernie supporters who are bummed about how he did in GA, NC, SC, AL should not overlook that it's a huge deal that black voters made up more than half of voters in alabama + georgia.

i don't think it's a huge surprise that black voters -- who generally have the most to gain or lose by nominating someone seen as an electability risk, and who have maybe become a little skeptical over the years of promises made but not kept -- would coalesce around the safer, establishment pick. remember, most black voters backed hillary in '08 before it became clear that obama had a plausible path to the nomination. it's not so much that they love hillary. it's that they want a democrat in the white house

i'd again recommend this charles m blow piece - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/opinion/campaign-stops/stop-bernie-splaining-to-black-voters.html

it's just the worst kind of myopia to assume that bc it's obv to you that your candidate is the best one that means it's unfathomable that someone could disagree

http://lds.net/blog/buzz/lds-news/donald-trump-opinion-on-mormons/

Drumpf insisted that Mitt Romney lost because his faith was “alien.” But as Drumpf’s thoughts on the Church turned negative, Coppins interrupted explaining that he was Mormon. Drumpf then changed his tune saying, “People don’t understand the Mormon thing. I do. I get it.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-not-long-killed-trump-rally-article-1.2549868?cid=bitly

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, March 2, 2016 10:19 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well this was grim af

"I watched him for hours recruit Trump supporters with five of his buddies," said Shah. "They later attacked the group I was with. The Neo-Nazis threw punches and kicked us."

She [different she] distinctly remembered one disturbing chant, which was lead by the white supremacists, "You're scum, your time will come. You're scum, your time will come."

latinos also broke big for hillary. re berniebro anecdotes, the same berniebro i mentioned above was making the case that hillary had exploited identity politics to unfairly beat bernie which seems pretty sour grapes to me + not relevant to reality.

I have a friend who suspects that Sanders loses black votes every time he talks about Denmark and Norway.

america about to be faced with the difficult question of which ideology it truly loathes more: fascism or feminism

/#thingsyoureadinvoxarticlesfor$200alex

I mean, tbc, the Blow article is pretty convincing to me. I just thought it was an interesting idea.

berniebros also paranoid about superdelegates

Pretty sure Killer Mike had a fairly long career in the South before El-P brought him to Pitchfork's attention via Run The Jewels.

Also:

i think he's going to look terrible attacking hillary if she can keep her cool. he'll look like a bully (i think the meagan kelly spat was an early indicator that it won't play well with most ppl). and i think she is going to dance circles around him intellectually + in terms of policy. he'll come off looking like a mean, stupid snake oil salesman and dems will take house and congress, stack the supreme court, and enjoy the hillary experience for 8 years before the inauguration of elizabeth warren.

Don't fully agree with the last part (after "and dems will...") but yeah, Google "Rick Lazio." Hillary will flatten Trump in head-to-head debates if he goes full thug. The thing is, he knows it, too - he went notably easier on Carly Fiorina than on anybody else to date.

this alternate reality where Dems replay Trump's current and very successful speeches in the future and they somehow result in a DIFFERENT outcome where they make people NOT vote for him is pretty amazing.

this is crazy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JGJVJTwLYo

why don't they highlight how he clearly knows who david duke is since he quit the reform party because duke was in it (along with pat buchanan, etc). pretty clearly highlights his disingenuousness

VO: What's Donald Trump's plan for unemployment in America?
Trump: It's gonna be fantastic. We're going to do amazing work.
VO: But...what's Donald Trump's actual plan for unemployment in America?
Trump: Sensational. It's gonna be sensational. We have big plans.
VO: ...Wait, no, seriously. What does he actually plan to do?
Trump: We're going to make America great again.
VO: America, do you really want a president who's basically just an unprepared and not particularly bright fourth-grader deflecting his teacher's questions because he didn't do his homework?

per the Clods News Network, Romney is about to give a "surprise" speech! Could it be "I will accept a draft"?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ben-carson-to-tell-supporters-he-sees-no-path-forward-for-campaign/2016/03/02/d6bef352-d9b3-11e5-891a-4ed04f4213e8_story.html

america about to be faced with the difficult question of which ideology it truly loathes more: fascism or feminism

@DennisThePerrin
Election '16: Corporate militarism vs. corporate fascism. The choice is clear.

well, it is

another satisfied Democrat!

Yeah, I mean, there isn't a perfect choice between the two but there's certainly one that's more preferable. Welcome to democracy. Or 'democracy' if you prefer.

i am usually all about "don't tell me surrender to the reagan democrats is 'mature' or the 'lesser evil'" but let's just recap rill quick

"You're scum, your time will come. You're scum, your time will come."

this alternate reality where Dems replay Trump's current and very successful speeches in the future and they somehow result in a DIFFERENT outcome where they make people NOT vote for him is pretty amazing.

totally different voting bases. come on now.

@ggreenwald
Liberals condescendingly underestimating political skills of adversaries (Ike, Reagan, W, now Trump) is a historical, enduring problem