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

yeah, thats where im at. like maybe there is a silent majority of gopers who long for prudent leadership to right the ship and rubio is the mccain/romney they rly want, but i think these folks really and truly believe in their stupid hearts that they lost to obama two times because they werent aggressive and conservative enough

like i get their respective negatives, but were McCain, Romney or Dole anywhere near as feckless as Rubio?

its a 3 person race, rubio (i have elected experience and i have "gotten stuff done") has gotta position himself as the anti-trump (i'm an irredeemable asshole and i hate the same people you hate), cruz (im an asshole and i have elected experience) is gonna try to play between the two and probably win

xp

xp my reading says, nah, rubio has way less feck than all of them

Rubio is not getting the nomination.

I'd be more inclined to say Cruz won't get the nomination. That's what I got out of all the talk this morning: just how hated Cruz is within the party, borne out by the reaction to the eligibility flare-up, where even McCain (who obviously hates Trump) wouldn't defend him. Trump is supposedly now being viewed as an acceptable alternative to Cruz.

As a non-American blessedly free from much media coverage of this nonsense, I heard Rubio's voice for the first time today, and that alone made him seem unlikely as a presidential figure

Wait'll you hear Cruz's voice...

You can go through every single one of these, and I'd say 'xx is not getting the nomination'. They should do that thing competitions sometimes do, and say 'no deserving winner', then nominate Ryan for vice president again.

I'd be more inclined to say Cruz won't get the nomination. That's what I got out of all the talk this morning: just how hated Cruz is within the party, borne out by the reaction to the eligibility flare-up, where even McCain (who obviously hates Trump) wouldn't defend him. Trump is supposedly now being viewed as an acceptable alternative to Cruz.

― clemenza,

What's left of the party establishment, which exists only in Sunday morning green rooms, is as usual being stupid. Loathsome or not, Ted Cruz would preserve if not advance their goals. Trump is someone over whom they have no control.

trying to figure out who i should throw my vote to in TN's open primary: Trump or Cruz.

and for me it kind of goes beyond some Operation Chaos shit. like i really, really want these dimbulbs to get the pure, unadulterated loon they've been pining for all these years. it's only fair.

and i say that with the perhaps misguided notion that Cruz would fair little better than Trump against Clinton in the general.

buttload of feck

(xxxpost) Again, going only by the talk this morning--haven't a clue how these people think--that was the specific point that was made, that whereas Trump would sort of fall in line and "make deals," Cruz was a loose cannon.

I can believe they can be so stupid as to shoo away the one nominee who incarnates their contempt for governance. To play that part convincingly you must show contempt for Senate colleagues, and he's done that.

Wait'll you hear Cruz's voice...

I actually think his voice is what's putting him well over Rubio at this point. He offers big pronouncements about the great evil more convincingly because that's his whole schtick. Rubio is less convincing, I think, because he's more detail- and policy-oriented.

I realize the "establishment" is dying or dead. But just as a practical matter, I would think it would be tough to get the nomination if most of the other senators hate you. You've got to go into their states and win primaries--if you've got Trump on one side and a sitting senator or two who hates you on the other, that'd be a difficult needle to thread, wouldn't it? If his unpopularity in the Senate actually is an advantage, then this is a weirder nomination than I even thought.

Cruz sounds other-worldly to me--i.e., not human.

yeah I dunno what's gonna happen. Maybe Reagan will finally get in this.

I don't see why sitting senators are going to have much impact at all.

Endorsements and local machinery matter

I guess it depends on whether they're liked themselves by their constituents. If they are, and they have negative things to say about Cruz, I think it'd matter a little; if they're not, then no.

I would question how much any of they are liked in general in spite of their ability to win re-elecitons. Like what would be an example of a sitting GOP senator that could exercise influence over how a state votes?

Anyway, they still have a secret weapon.

http://g03.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1VQR4JFXXXXaSXpXXq6xXFXXXz/Superman-Mitt-Romney-OIL-PAINTING-ON-CANVAS-Hand-Painted-Classical-ART-FREE-SHIPPING-TO-ALL-OVER.jpg

(Kidding, yes.)

People are gonna vote for who Mitch McConnell likes?

How about that Bernie, you guys?

the question is, will the GOP nominate Bernie over Hillary?

"People are gonna vote for who Mitch McConnell likes?"

Don't think it is necessarily that people care who McConnell likes, but a guy like that has his state' contacts in a state party structure to get the vote out and the connections to people with cash to cut checks for distributing signage etc. Literally the people in the GOP offices in the state often are those senator's people, many are there because of past elections working with such a senator.

Endorsements and local machinery matter

― Οὖτις, Sunday, January 10, 2016 7:04 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, they're also important in opening donor's pockets. weird to see everyone arguing that because senators are lame that they are somehow not major power players within their state.

xp

earlnash otm, makes the point I was trying to in far stronger fashion

you guys only get to play this game for another 5 months or so

baseball can't start soon enough

I'm questioning the extent of their power. Getting vote out can be handled by campaigns and I don't think Cruz and Trump are going to suffer from not having enough signage.

Getting vote out can be handled by campaigns

Not really

Coordination w local resources is always key, canpaigns dont have the time/money to create local political infrastructures in every state

I can imagine it would be key if there was a close race. I'm not sure that an "establishment candidate" will ever get close this time.

Trump's campaign is hurting his brand in a big way.

ha

when the ruling classes decide you have no class, that's as low as it goes

i saw a headline that sam wang think's trump will be the nominee, but digging around a little on the PEC website i can't see that claim specifically

http://election.princeton.edu/

the 'trump will fail' punditry all seems pretty tautological to me. he just has to fall at some point, so he will!

damn stray apostrophe

i was asked, god knows why, to explain to a stranger why he won't be president the other night and went with

1) no one like this has been nominated, at least not since we got running water

2) a steady third of our populace is congenitally stupid, not 45%+

3) the GOP will change the rules/sabotage him rather than commit certain downballot suicide

3) is the most compelling reason

Sam Wang // Jan 10, 2016 at 2:32 pm

Jesse, a quick take.

In summer/fall, it was probably appropriate to rely heavily on The-Party-Decides because polls lacked any predictive power. The question in my mind is why the FiveThirtyEight people have not updated that prior using polls. It is Silver’s style to react slowly to new data.

Also, correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think they have done an analysis like what I posted last week. Even if they did, they (and I) now have a problem: The-Party-Decides and poll-based indicators are now pointing in very different directions. What now???

In my view, this is because the national GOP has been moving toward crisis since 1994. Therefore I would say

Probability that The-Party-Decides will fail = 30%.
Probability that poll-based predictions will fail =15%.

Based on that, I would guess that Trump is favored now over Rubio. (For now, I think Cruz is less likely because he scores so low on ranked-preference polls.)

As for “Why Rubio?,” this is a consequence of The-Party-Decides. If one accepts that premise, then the only alternative is Jeb Bush based on endorsements, money, and officeholding experience. This prediction fails is if The-Party-Decides has waning influence. In national HuffPost averages, in January 2012 current and former officeholders were supported by about 80% of respondents. As of today that number is about 25%.

comment from his 1/7 post

i honestly don't think it'll get that far, Shakes. but i spose i could be wrong.

GOP knows that if Trump gets the nomination, opposing voters will hit the polls in droves. They need someone less noxious or they're basically handing the presidency to Hillary.

i honestly don't think it'll get that far, Shakes. but i spose i could be wrong.

I don't think so either but the x factor here (as I've said before) is what happens when Trump loses primaries - at this point I would bet he loses Iowa, for ex. But what his reaction to being a LOSER are instead of a winner will be, I have no idea. He's unpredictable.

are

does the GOP have the power to manage 3) these days?

if he wins he'll be a black swan but those happen all the time.

Even when he loses, he'll spin it as a win somehow. It'll be the people of Iowa who are a bunch of losers.

With the republican establishment looking so weak these days, it is easy to forget how much control they exert over the nominating convention, esp. the rules committee.