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

Cruzing to victory!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7XuTzIu1wc

I don't agree with everything in that Dreher article, but it definitely is an interesting point that both parties have done a lot to freeze out a large chunk of the country from the US economy, and now we are seeing the result.

Trump's having a rally in my backyard today. They had to turn people away.

However lots of attendees were anti Trumps wanting to be a fly on the wall. 10 or more friends did this today.

One of the ladies interviewed said she was a Rubio supporter until "he got mean"

Trump is apparently showing up here soon.

Like Zika.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cc0GH_sWAAA2fR2.jpg

this happened.

where? When? Who?

Maybe he was just looking for volunteers?

https://twitter.com/wpjenna/status/706227458777993216

i know theyre small states and theres a sample size of two, but cruz is winning kansas and maine today

He's winning Kansas with 25%. Is the tide turning?

No

Kansan GOP rabidly anti-abortion

that win is certainly by more than the markets expected, cruz is up ~5% to 17% on the markets in the last hour

the democrats could really have no greater gift (in the near-term) than for the GOP to nominate cruz.

even if he'd be marginally (?) less divisive for the Republican party than Trump, he'd be total death in the general election.

but maybe the GOP at this point privileges long-term coherence (??) of their party over gaining the presidency. not that a trump loss in the primaries will necessarily undo the obvious damage that's already been done (or stave off the inevitable split of the party that some have diagnosed).

i think i would actually prefer Cruz in the gen.

it would finally (haha j/k not really) put a final nail in the coffin of this fantasy that America will come out en masse to support a Real Conservative

that's the craziest thing is i start to think about who is poised to stop trump and it's the guy that i'm not even sure might not be worse

right, what gives the lie to the high-mindedness of romney et al's anti-trump maneuvers is that they suggest cruz as a palatable alternative, which is nuts.

https://twitter.com/DavMicRot/status/706254370279526402

a lot of people in the GOP would much rather put forward cruz in the general and have him lose than put forward trump, whatever the end result

"but maybe the GOP at this point privileges long-term coherence (??) of their party over gaining the presidency."

to put it in other words, they're not trying to win, they're just trying not to die. probably smart, but anointing your killer as your savior, perhaps not so much.

also, for some republicans, the 20% chance that trump might win is worse than the 95% chance that cruz will lose.

that win is certainly by more than the markets expected, cruz is up ~5% to 17% on the markets in the last hour

I think markets are failing to price in the fact that they're a bunch of people guessing, and you're embarrassing yourself as a grown adult by paying them attention.

Rod Dreher cries.

i find a lot of what he writes ponderous and ill-conceived but am i wrong in finding him the most interesting right-wing writer/pundit type atm? not that it's much of a competition..

I think markets are failing to price in the fact that they're a bunch of people guessing, and you're embarrassing yourself as a grown adult by paying them attention.

― Andrew Farrell, Saturday, March 5, 2016 6:44 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

literally anything you can read is a bunch of people guessing

what about the stuff you can't read

nate silver is currently speculating that "nice" states dislike trump and the abrasive states like him. i think it's safe to say no one knows anything about american politics in 2016.

when the markets move suddenly that's a sign that a "bunch of people" were surprised by events, that's all

if that's embarrassing you should see me after 8 beers

And he mocked Mr. Cruz, calling him “Lyin’ Ted.” He then went on to explain how that would be spelled: “L-Y-E-N. Lyin’. With a big apostrophe.”

Donaldhino

*Donaldinho

does this mean we get more canadian birther stuff?

Agreed with amateurist both that Cruz is general-election Kryptonite, and also that for some Rs, preserving party identity is a higher priority than winning the election. (One would suspect that the Supreme Court situation complicates that calculation somewhat, at least for some, but others don't see the point of pushing for conservative justices because they all turn too liberal anyway once installed, as Roberts did.)

Also dittoing will: Cruz as nominee would be pretty clarifying - yr Constitution-jizzing social-conservative deep-red Tea types could finally get a candidate of unimpeachable purity - who would then go on to lose spectacularly.

As I think I said in a prior thread, it would be even better if it were Cruz vs. Sanders: a cathartic and informative election, where we could really find out if there were more of us than there are of them, or vice versa.

Is there evidence of Sanders and Cruz interacting in the Senate?

he's not wrong tbf

― k3vin k.

If the makeup were what it is now, and one case after another ended up deadlocked, what purpose would the court serve?

Cruz adds Maine. Cruzmentum--ugh.

Didn't the governor of Maine endorse Trump last week?

As titillating as Trump's campaign has been, atm I am thinking the best case scenario on the Republican side of things would be if Cruz arrives at the convention with roughly the same number of delegates as Trump, but neither one has it sewed up on the first ballot.

Next, Cruz takes the nomination on the third or still later ballot, after a brazenly sleazy set of parliamentary maneuvers which totally alienates Trump's supporters from the party (bcz alienating people is Cruz's biggest talent). After which Cruz goes on to the general election and alienates independent voters so badly he loses in all but a dozen states and his name becomes a byword for political sleaze and gross failure for generations to come.

that would be p cool

Trump's clearly a big nickname guy (everyone knows somebody like that), and I suspect that'd continue as president. Kim Jong-un would be L'il Kim, Putin'd be Lyin' Vlad, etc.

Pooty-tang

the trump movement getting folded into cruz' schtick seems like the worst possible scenario

i like the thing louie ck write

I suspect Cruz would be the easier to beat in a general--he's a true-believer conservative, so you know what kind of a campaign to run against him, plus he's so creepy; Trump scrambles up everything, so there's an element of uncertainty--but I want to see him denied as much pleasure in this life as possible, so I always root against him.

i don't think republicans are winning this general, regardless

or if they did, something really will have happened to this country between now and then

*bad

Like a monster invasion

an inasion by monsters, totally