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

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?

haha fair point. man this guy.

if you put stock in RCP's polling average line graphs, all this goofery has hurt him, perhaps in combination with other developments. the pyramid stuff broke in the first week of november - just as he'd finally climbed into being neck-and-neck with trump at around 25% polling average - and since then he's been declining with some precipitous jumps. latest average puts him at 17.5% and falling. mostly that's been to trump's benefit (he's now at his highest point ever, at 30.8%!) but some of it's gone to cruz/rubio. bush has dipped below 5% for the first time.

(the "fair point" was re: the alien beings)

This again (which apparently strikes Republicans as wise and correct and helpful)...Not sure why the NY Times editorial board is surprised

From Jeb Bush, a bizarre slam: “The brutal savagery of Islamic terrorism exists, and this president and his former secretary of state cannot call it for what it is.”

And Donald Trump, true to his birther views, insinuated that Mr. Obama was hiding something: “Radical Islamic terrorism. We have a president that refuses to use the term. He refuses to say it. There’s something going on with him that we don’t know about.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/opinion/tough-talk-and-a-cowardly-vote-on-terrorism.html?_r=0

hillary, sanders + o'malley also refuse to say it so i guess the entire party has been invaded by secret muslims. otoh obama did use to say it in 2008: "But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with Ameirca; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."

xp Below 5% but still in fifth place!

let's figure out the reaction if Robert Dear gets called a radical Christian

god forbid we refer to the pp shooting as radical christianity that'll alienate a bunch of christian youth to defect to the westboro church

Meanwhile Trump at the Jewish Republican gathering in DC yesterday managed to offend folks whose support he wants

http://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-courts-jewish-republicans-with-offensive-stereotypes/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_daily202

“I’m a negotiator like you folks were negotiators,” the controversial candidate declared to his audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition, as he explained that he would broker a stronger nuclear deal with Iran than the one concluded earlier this year. At another point in his speech, he said: “Is there anyone in this room who doesn’t negotiate deals? Probably more than any room I’ve ever spoken...
, “And I know why you’re not going to support me. You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money. Isn’t it crazy?”

that wasn't the worst thing for his support among jewish republicans. this was:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4734724,00.html

xp wooooow what a tone deaf asshole

BJ has a nice collection of RJC coverage highlights

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/12/04/open-thread-the-latest-gop-clown-car-cattle-call-rjc-dc/

xpost 'Tone deaf' doesn't seem quite right, as it suggests that he might actually give a fuck that he was insulting people. And also assumes that he's actually unaware of having given offense, which I'm inclined to think isn't entirely true.

the hillary mole theory feels righter every day

If that theory is true, the fact that he's leading the GOP pack is even more hysterical.

I just figured out Trump reminds me of professional wrestler/manager Bobby Heenan:

http://percypringle.com/Hall-of-Fame/Photos/BobbyHeenanHOF.jpg

waiting for trump to refer to journos as 'pencil necked geeks'

http://observer.com/2015/12/shock-poll-bernie-sanders-is-the-most-electable-candidate-in-either-party/

Carson had me searching for the Star of David on the back of a $1 bill. I didn't see one, but I did see ... a pyramid. And we know how he feels about those things.

Open your eyes, sheeple.

http://i.imgur.com/O0tTl5p.jpg

Um. Hope everyone can see that okay.

A CNN poll out today (but taken before California) gives Trump his biggest lead yet:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/04/politics/donald-trump-poll-cnn-orc-national/

Nate Silver keeps arguing that these polls are meaningless, and he's pretty much always right about this stuff. He does allow that it's possible Trump could win--I think he puts him at 5% or something.

Carson seein' stars ...

I don't think nate silver knows anything that anyone else doesn't this time around, we're kinda in unknown territory. there are a lot of vested interests in trump not winning the nom, yet he's more popular than ever and it's hard to see exactly where his fans would/will break with him.

the only gaffes trump can make are 'I love Obama' and 'I'm not rich'.

how about 'I'm taking my ball and going home'

The one thing I basically trust Silver on though is "Don't believe the hype, the press need headlines every day but it doesn't mean the polls mean anything more than they actually mean." Not the most devastating insight in the world, but useful. As noted above though I really wish he'd quit ESPN in a rage and start up his own private blog again, was sooooooo much better like that.

i enjoy the little roundtables but i do think he would have worked better as just another grantland writer, maybe you give him his own little mini-fiefdom inside it and occasionally you let him and goldsberry or him and barnwell have some nerdout numbers session. i did chuckle when he said recently that polls don't tell us a lot right now but they do tell us more about the voters than any column written by someone in georgetown or manhattan. dude's hatred of political punditry is deep (and justified).

there was something in politico about some of the jeb! loyalist superpacs possibly just trying to wipe out the rest of the field minus trump (ie cruz and rubio) w/ heavy negative ad buys so that the party would be 'forced' to opt for jeb. plz plz plz.