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

will return to Castle Greyskull

i seriously can't remember hating someone as much as i hate this guy. now i know something of the white hot rage some people get when they hear the names nixon and reagan. bush could never inspire this much revulsion in me, even though of course i was appalled by his presidency

i can but they were all 12-14 years old and classmates of mine

I didn't know about the "Ron Paul Rule" until today--something they concocted in 2012. If they honor it at the convention, Trump wins; they have to change it for anyone else to win.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eoin-higgins/rnc-rules-to-stifle-ron-p_b_8941816.html

are there any legal ramifications to RNC changing the rules at the convention and saying something like "and since the rule is anybody with RUMP in their name can't run, you're out"?

like if Trump was somehow led to believe he'd be the nominee through current procedure, would he have any recourse, or would it just be unethical but not something he could sue over?

clemenza - they may have to change that for anybody to get voted on at all, though, since winning majorities of delegates hasn't really been happening. but i can't imagine anyone was seriously thinking "aha, we'll use this one weird trick to keep trump's delegates from even getting to vote. he's done way way too well for that and you really would be looking at a riot situation. that's not to say no rules-based trickery will come into play, but this one seems undercooked. of course the article is from january and things probably looked a little different then.

(xpost) It sounds like the existing rules become void the minute the convention starts, and while they're usually renewed as a matter of formality, they can basically change whatever they want. (I'm sure your reductio ad absurdum example would present problems...)

Yeah, the article points out that even Trump might fall short of the Paul rule.

he is going to die because he is 70 years old, doesn't exercise, and subsists on a diet of grease, sugar, and bile

no way. i can state unequivocally, if elected, he would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.

http://i.imgur.com/6fPYIzR.png

http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515c5469e201b7c81b3d03970b-pi

this is dr. harold n. bornstein btw

but yeah, if trump doesn't walk in the door with a >50% majority, the first thing on the agenda for the RNC will be to set very expansive rules for delegate seating ("we want all voices to be heard in our big tent party") so that every single non-trump delegate - even Jeb!'s sad foursome - can be mobilized.

one shenanigan they might more plausibly consider would be releasing the three-per-state RNC-representative delegates from the requirement that they vote for whoever won their state. these, together with a very small number of miscellaneous unbound delegates, are the GOP equivalent of superdelegates, and were previously considered something of a non-issue (by me, for one) since there are so few of them. but in the contested convention scenario, those 150 extra delegates would be a huge bloc. mind you i'm not sure if this is a rule they actually could change at this date.... but suppose it were slipped in that they were only bound to vote for the winner of a state if it had a true majority winner? i'm definitely not an inside expert on these matters, just kinda imagining, which i admit is silly at this point, but the part of me that double-majored in political science can't help but find this kind of rulesy what-if shit fascinating.

That rule was always going to be changed (they all are every time afaict) but that one has to be changed this time: even trump hasn't won a majority in any state except lol Northern Mariana

Rubio's delegates, most of them are going to wind up being reallocated somewhere, too (except for the 20 or so that by state law have to remain bound to Rubio, fuckin stupid as hell)

and then we all comforted ourselves with some good ol intra-left bickering

i'm def not in the same SF prosecco-sippin' "left" as Shakey

xpost well, yeah. i mean first round they have to vote for their candidate and then the interesting thing is, what kind of deals get cut to move those people around and assemble a majority for somebody. again we're in what-if territory. rubio managed to soak up 172 delegates, a decent-sized piece of the pie right now though it'll be less of one by june.

deep pointless broker speculation territory ahead: so, the big question is, does trump make up the gap in the remaining contests and push himself over 50%? it's possible but it does depend on him doing better than he's ever done so far, even though the field has narrowed again. for the sake of fun, assume for a minute that he fails to do so and we are headed to a contested convention (or pre-convention deal-making). then, the most important sub-variable becomes how well kasich does in the time between now and then. cruz currently appears to be the second-place guy, but the assumption has long been that he's already passed his best states and is thus much further behind than he seems. rubio was hoping to do wait this period out and then beat cruz in those later states. but clearly ran the numbers and found it would never be enough, with trump doing as well as he's turned out to do - and certainly not in a four-man field.

IF kasich gets most of the dwindling rubio support in those later states, AND they really are ill-suited to cruz, AND trump's numbers slip just a little (not a "flame-out," just one of his periodic wobbles, facing slightly less trump-friendly states), THEN it's possible that kasich wins some of the remaining winner-take-all states, cruz wins few or none of them, and trump is held just shy of 50% with kasich as the second-place guy. the RNC and company, i think, would find it much easier to broker a deal for the rubio-and-assorted-delegates around a Kasich/Cruz ticket than Cruz/Kasich. for one, they may hope that cruz's extremism is less serious ballot-box poison if he's #2 (a la paul ryan) though in reality the dems will have a field day portraying such a candidate as a double-whammy of right-wing ideologues.

I dont even know what prosecco is

Xp

but yes its been well established that you are a party of one morbz

it's wine, much like what Morbs has done throughout this thread

if one wanted to start playing the betting markets, would this be a good buy-in time for Cruz, or did that ship sail?

does it seem deeply odd to anybody else that Kasich, of all 16 of the original candidates, is the establishment "alternative" guy that's lasted this long? I never predicted that.

well I guarantee that had everything to do with the importance of Ohio and his success in polls in that state. if he'd have dropped prior to now, this race would be effectively over after last night.

course now he's not going to drop due to the win and wanting to be a viable brokered opportunity as well.

well gosh darn it he wasn't going to quit before the fine people of ohio got to vote

I understand why Kasich's hanging around--the scenario Casino outlines above (plus maybe a VP pick)--but I just can't see him as the nominee under any circumstances. I think the party (by which I mean, in this case, the people who draw up the rules) would just as soon lose with Trump or Cruz than run a bland, born-again (or fake, whatever) moderate who was drawing 10% of the vote until his home state.

they could always reprogram him

does it seem deeply odd to anybody else that Kasich, of all 16 of the original candidates, is the establishment "alternative" guy that's lasted this long? I never predicted that.

:

http://i.imgur.com/TXWB5pl.jpg

he told people he was gonna win ohio

nobody believed in him. they said no john, you can't do it, you can't win ohio. but he won ohio. and it's a whole new ballgame.

Nixon knew

gop convention - that's really just another election in cleveland. there's only one politician left who is undefeated in ohio.

I don't want to say it's a sure thing, but the writing's on the wall.

typical smh @ Florida.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/florida-poll-workers-find-democratic-ballots-in-closet-after-telling-voter-primary-for-republicans-only/

probably nothing sinister as much as gross incompetence, and wouldn't have impacted the race, but lord....

guess i don't understand why anyone would be angling for vice president -- warm piss and that -- but particularly in a trump or cruz administration. what would be the point, apart from hoping your boss died?

I'm sure they'll all watched HoC

Doc Casino, you care about that shit more than I do.

guess i don't understand why anyone would be angling for GOP [s]vice[s] president -- warm piss and that

Paul Ryan does not want to lose to HRC.

(S@rge broke the story for Gawker too!)

xxxpost

kasich to me always had the right look-and-feel for an "establishment" candidate (though "moderate" has been an interesting sell). on paper, in a 'typical' year, he's got it all - oldish white guy, been in the party forever, can talk about working with reagan, governor of a swing state that is not utterly sick of him. balanced budget, blah blah, business as usual, and just count on the base getting out to vote against hillary being enough to cancel out your really really unappealing swing-state positions on abortion, etc. hindsight's 20/20 but he just seems more obviously a 'real' candidate than most of the clown car.

frankly he might have been a passable establishment front-runner in a world without jeb! getting much of the big big donor class to buy into him before he was road-tested (or before anyone thought through the general appeal of another bush running), and hanging on to them for so, so long. and rubio convincing another swath of that crowd that he was the fresh-faced GOP Obama they'd been looking for. who knows, without either of those factors and the larger clown car problem, this might have looked like a pretty conventional race. (in other words, assuming that trump's dominance wasn't just due to his fame, free press, or anti-establishment anger, but specifically due to jeb and rubio actually being terrible candidates that didn't excite anybody and couldn't think on their feet.) imagine if you will, folksy establishment midwestern conservative kasich as front-runner, trump as a pat buchanan channeling right-wing anger but crushed once the winner-take-all states kick in. kasich was probably thinking of something like that (and considering his own age) when he first considered running; by the time he was actually in, the car was full and he suddenly appeared to be playing for VP or to be considered the heir apparent in 2020. it's swung back around where there's a very faint glimmer of a chance he could actually be the nominee. weird.

@ alfred ha, yeah, i can get going. time to walk away from the computer and think about frank lloyd wright for a while.

Kasich would have been a perfect GOP nominee in 2000.

he's abhorrent and gross but is polite and won't call for a stoning if gays on Medicaid make out in front of him

Meanwhile, in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, Mr. Drumpf described himself as the person he listens to most on foreign policy.

“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things,” Mr. Drumpf said.

He went on, “My primary consultant is myself and I have — you know, I have a good instinct for this stuff.”

"I have a very good brain and I've said a lot of things"!

"I just wanted to say that I have been otm in this election"

Basically, Jeb! cockblocked everyone and let Trump sneak in. Between Jeb's name and money, other hopefuls seemed hopeless, but he was so terrible the losers stayed at the party hoping to get lucky.

"i have a very good brain and i've said a lot of things" instantly on the shortlist for part 5 thread title

and Reagan could've said it

will you and Reagan's corpse get a room already

ugh, stop with the drumpf shit

Drumpf was one of the many phrases input into FB purity this morning

will you and Reagan's corpse get a room already

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius),

you mean you and Bill Clinton

so who still thinks inherited privilege doesn't dominate every facet of contemporary society?

lol "Here's what I surmise about some movies I didn't see" xp

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, March 16, 2016 2:43 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL indeed. who said internet criticism wasn't rigorous?

i wonder if any of these conservative PACs currently running broadsides against trump on the TV will keep it up after he becomes the nominee. are there some wealthy/influential conservatives who believe that trump will be more damaging (to the GOP and the nation) than Clinton? and will they put their money (and mouths) where their principles are?

i'm pretty cynical about the GOP establishment failing to get in line behind a trump candidacy. they've essentially enabled the fascist so far, I don't think they have enough principles and good sense to really stop now even if they'll whine about it until kingdom come. history will not judge them kindly, of course.