Buttload of Faith: the 2016 Presidential Primary Thread (Pt 2)

wait Hitler was balding

maybe it's just his hairline

this is probably going to be offensive but sometimes i can't help but wonder if ben carson isn't actually an idiot savant, like the genuine article

They may also be waiting until more people are paying attention to make a big-tent, anti-Trump "you don't represent the sober, bipartisan, get-things-done, down-to-earth conservative values of this party!" type speech

I don't think any of them are waiting to give this speech tbh

I agree that at this point all these lower tier candidates are staying in cuz why shouldn't they. it's a war of attrition and no one's gonna drop out if they have functional organization + fundraising to keep going. they're all waiting for a bloodbath. what cues that bloodbath is probably going to be Iowa and New Hampshire but who knows.

Agree that it looks like no matter what happens there's going to be a lot of panicked horse-trading and delegate arm-twisting involved, dunno if Trump is actually smart enough to navigate that stuff.

i can see trump losing the primaries for precisely that reason, not running as a third party in general but forming some kind of dumb PAC or organization on the basis of "the GOP establishment screwed me out of the nomination" and becoming something like the whole sarah palin personality cult but writ larger and slightly longer lasting.

I think Rubio sees himself as the guy to give that speech. It would be disingenuous and cynical, but his brand claims he's the young, fresh face of a reinvigorated GOP for the 21st century and he's got to be looking for ways to cement that. He's not going to win by trying to out-Trump Trump or out-Cruz Cruz, but clearly anyone still backing Bush will be ready to leap to Rubio if Bush finally gives up, and if he looks like the last and best grownup in the room, he wins, especially if it turns out half the people who answer their phone and say "Trump" or "Carson" don't really show up to vote on primary day.

I personally think it's more likely that Carson voters 'ghost' in the end - Trump's people seem pretty fired up and eager to rub their guy in everybody's faces. If Carson - who is short on that GOTV ground-game stuff AFAICT - can't get his fans to show up, the distribution of votes cast will look really different from the distribution of people who answer their phones for a poll. Trump could easily lose Iowa and NH without anybody formally 'quitting' or anybody having to 'switch,' if the turnout belies the poll pools.

In no circumstance will Trump be able to wrangle delegates IMHO. The people not already supporting him know he's toxic and bad for the party, and do not want him to be the nominee. I really REALLY don't think we'd get to that point, but I also really think the non-Trump delegates would seriously choose anybody but Trump. Especially if he's "won" the primaries with 20-25% of delegates total and doesn't have any claim to a mandate from the party. At which point, yes, he'll become a permanent aggrieved "they stole the nomination from Trump" personality cult.

it's amazing to think that marco rubio, who looks and acts like a dimwitted boy scout troup leader, is now the go-to "adult in the room"

the 'clown car' analogy covered a lot more than the number of human beings in the car. it's a terrible slate of candidates tbh. if the GOP has really great people in the wings (???), they stayed home figuring (correctly so far, based on the polls) that presumed dem candidate hillary's numbers beat any republican you throw at her, so why bother even trying? who they got were the people both ambitious and clueless enough to try anyway. if trump hadn't shown up and taken all the air, the real story on this race would be how there's fourteen candidates and not one of them is exciting anybody.

a dimwitted boy scout troup leader

lol so otm

it seems like a lot of other years, there's some older GOP stalwart who runs just because this is his last best chance -- dole, mccain, whoever. there's nobody like that this year.

those guys are all dead

basically no one from the Dubya administration can run, the House leadership is hated, and the available governors are a joke. So yeah, it's like there's a generation missing.

sometimes i fantasize about some situation where these candidates are locked in a room for six hours with some journalist who really cuts to the marrow, and after the jive breaks down all you hear is the buzzing inside their heads as they begin to realize they have no idea who they are, why they really want this job, or what they would do once in it.*

*this is mostly true of the guys in the middle of the pack: your rubios and bushes. the really scary guys are some of the exceptions to this. i have no doubt that cruz could talk anyone's ear off with all the garbage i really do think he buys into.

**i feel like in this scenario, after a few minutes ben carson would start whistling and rubbing his belly.

Doctor Casino is mostly otm, but it's worth pointing out that Trump, Carson and Cruz combine to take 59% of the votes. Those are all anti-establishment candidates. I have a hard time seeing their votes going to Bush or Rubio.

great, those guys can go off and form their own party then

Trump's votes are probably largely Trump-specific, Carson's are Evangelicals who have found a nice dim man with a soul of blood and fire. They probably won't switch to each other, but Cruz obviously hopes to hoover both up.

there are tons of people who have been waiting their entire lives to vote against Hillary Clinton.

Also to repeat a note someone made upthread this _is_ the big hitters in the wings from the last election, the Jeb Bushes and Bobby Jindals and Mike Huckabees that resisted the entreaties to come and be Anyone But Mitt - and now they have come on down and no-one gives a fuck.

And Chris Christie! Man, the sun was going to shine on Chris Christie until you'd need two pairs of sunglasses.

What are the odds of Colin Powell jumping in as the smoke clears? There was talk (half serious) of defaulting to Mitt earlier as this slate displayed their incompetence, maybe Powell could be that uniter, presuming he would even consider it.

Not that Mitt would be a uniter, just that he may seem like he'd draw more votes in the general than these guys.

pretty sure a black now-a-democrat is not the savior our white nationalist party wants

a shame that zipper problems have prevented david petraeus from continuing to serve america

do any of the candidates have military experience (besides the late jim webb)?

Ha, I had forgotten he had switched parties. Was just trying to think of a Republican that has some positive perception on a national level.

lol @ trumpolini

was also hoping at first that this

http://i.imgur.com/QbwkSzC.gif

was going to be something like this

http://i.imgur.com/ALUEkl4.jpg

Condi 2016!

xpost Ahahahaha. Perfect.

i'm not sure what, say, rubio would stand to lose by calling trump and bigot and a bully.

― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, December 3, 2015 6:20 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean i know what he /thinks/ he stands to lose, i'm just not convinced the concern is entirely warranted.

― wizzz! (amateurist),

Don't forget that Marco Rubio has been for want of a better word a pussy his entire career.

what movie is that from?

if the GOP had any goddamn sense, they woulda been cultivating condoleezza rice for just this moment, but no

Gandhi

xp

don't think her husband Dubya would've allowed it

i keep reading neocons/ Bushites prefer Trump to Cruz

now that I think of it, I honestly wonder if the electorate could handle two female candidates. might be the one set of circumstances in which trump could run as a third party candidate and possibly win!

Rice is a lightweight. Rodham could just run her pre-9/11 terror memo testimony for 2 months.

Bruneau - The Dead Zone.

And, um, spoiler alert.

There ARE at least two female candidates -- Jill Stein the Green included, who the committed Bernie folk will be voting for after he gets bounced.

Myself i'm tired of meaningless prez votes and plan to abstain in 48 weeks.

did you send out a press release yet?

did some dipshit vile assfuck i'm "not engaging with" say something?

no, i didn't think so.

it didn't occur to me until now to wonder what sort of dr you are. must be a proctologist.

i've seen that! where chrisopher walken is having those flashbacks.... thanks.

Trump's votes are probably largely Trump-specific, Carson's are Evangelicals who have found a nice dim man with a soul of blood and fire. They probably won't switch to each other

Or, I could be wrong.

Didn't know this was going on last night. Sounds like there was some uncomfortableness in the room.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/03/politics/2016-republican-jewish-coalition-candidates-awkward/

lmao ben carson

On Revolutionary War-era Jewish businessman Haym Salomon: "Salomon gave all his funds to save the U.S. Army and, some say, no one knows for sure, that's the reason there's a Star of David on the back of the one dollar bill."

lmao ben carson

_On Revolutionary War-era Jewish businessman Haym Salomon: "Salomon gave all his funds to save the U.S. Army and, some say, no one knows for sure, that's the reason there's a Star of David on the back of the one dollar bill."_

Omg you couldn't write this stuff. Like his pronunciation of Hamas as hummus throughout his speech. I'll enjoy seeing this one circling the drain even though he's basically on a glorified book tour

Ben Carson strikes me as a paragon of credulity who accepts as gospel truth absolutely any assertion that doesn't directly contradict his existing worldview and invents from whole cloth a myriad of imaginary facts to fill the sizable holes in his knowledge base.

Someone should ask him about how he would handle the situation in Candyland.

really can't wait until he casually brings up the reptilians, the way my college friends who had gotten into david icke did. "well, how else do you explain how the ancient phoenicians had laser technology?"

On Clemenza's link - the video of GOP candidates speaking to a Jewish Republican group - the video was preceded by an ad for "The Man in the High Castle," which was so hilarious to me that I failed to get a screen grab. I plan to refresh it a bunch today in the hopes I can see it again.

xp he basically did that with 'And various scientists have said, “Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how they were”—you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.'

Exactly how dumb/ignorant would a republican presidential candidate have to be to make their base uncomfortable about supporting them?