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

time for another unintentionally long delegate nerd speculation post. don't mind me.

fwiw, i think a brokered convention remains suuuuper unlikely, but just for clarification's sake, the republicans have a range of different delegate rules varying by state. this time article remains pretty useful for getting a sense of how tangled it is or could be. some delegates are 'bound' (must vote for 'their' candidate on the first ballot), some aren't. the pseudo-superdelegates aren't bound for example, and though as we've discussed before they are wayyyyyy less of a factor than they are for the democrats, they could come into play. in some of the caucus states, none of the delegates are bound. meanwhile, some states are winner-take-all, some states are proportional, some states are proportional with high thresholds. all this means that it's possible to reach the convention without one candidate having a majority, and for a fair number of delegates to have been pledged to candidates who did not stay in the race, who will become free agents after the first ballot.

again, i don't see that happening, at all. but if people are taking it more as a possibility, it is probably because of, yes, news equinox, but also because of two things:

(1) the current front-runner, in many interpretations, has a sort of fundamental ceiling on his support, and that ceiling is well shy of a majority in any state

(2) versus a typical race, it seems sorta plausible that a lot of people will stay in this one past the point where things usually consolidate to a two-person deal. that is, assuming trump actually stays in and actually gets votes, you might also go on to assume that neither bush nor rubio, nor cruz probably, is going to do what people normally do in races and say "well, it looks like it's not my year, there's a frontrunner and a second place person fighting it out and neither one of them is me." because everybody assumes that at some point the trump thing is over and they could be the one to reap the benefit. so where usually the race thins out a lot after the first few primaries, it's possible this one keeps grinding along and all these guys are getting delegates. the thinking is, what if this is like 2012, except there's not a romney actually soaking up those big juicy states? (see this summary chart for a refresher) what if the field is so evenly matched that those plums are flying every which way?

but even then, i don't really see it. there are just too many what-ifs to get us there - mainly, counting on the polls to not change too much between now and voting (seems like a stretch, given how much they've shifted in even the last two weeks), counting on all those polls to really be predictive of votes, and counting on ALL these characters to have the mindset i've outlined where staying in the game of chicken continues to make sense for them. the weird kind of equilibrium that could lead towards a brokered convention is way more plausible with four leading candidates than three. if carson quits soon, or just slips down to bush numbers (3.6%!) we get closer and closer to a situation where one remaining person can be convinced they need to step down for the good of the party, so there's one clear anti-trump person who can start racking up delegates.

meanwhile the pressure from the 'establishment' is going to be VERY high on the little dinky candidates to pack it in. they can't win and there are too many threshold-based primaries where they can't even hope to grab a few delegates and make themselves useful/relevant that way. and (counting bush), these jokers currently total nearly 15% of the polling average! make up the equivalent of an entire additional candidate in this race. in honor of the source candidates' initials (BCPFKHS) i'll be calling this globular composite entity "Bocephus." Bocephus, with 14.8%, is polling in the vicinity of Cruz (15.6), Rubio (13.6% and rising) and Carson (13.6% and falling). while some of bocephus's composite elements could plausibly swing Trump or Cruz, i think mostly it's rubio material: fiscally-minded, 'moderate' republicans, not interested in revved-up rhetoric or border wars, looking for "someone who can beat hillary in november," maybe they've even read the pundits pointing out that all this stuff about immigration is the kiss of death electorally. and while i think the establishment would take cruz over trump, they'd really, really rather have rubio. if rubio has the support of bocephus, and plenty of ad-buying money, then trump and cruz trading second or even first place finishes in some of the primaries is just fine. no brokerage required.

this hasn't happened yet because things have been so chaotic, and because the assumption is that you need to let the primaries play out a bit to make sure you don't end up with a supposedly electable conservative that the party just completely hates or who is utterly inept on stage (like if they'd just decided on bush day one). but eventually it will happen, imo.

guys i know trainwrecks are exciting but maybe we can hold off on the "brokered convention" talk until after iowa?

yeah sorry the tl;dr of my post was basically "it's not going to happen, because nobody besides internet nerds wants it to happen."

i only brought it up because of the headline article in the washington post about the gop power brokers discussing a brokered convention. i guess i really fell for it

cue 100000000000 internet people 4 months ago talking about how the inevitable trump flameout by the end of july

will be

recorded

penis

mmmm

but yes, all of this is insane. the top news in 2015, according to facebook, was the 2016 election. i'm willing to admit that my thoughts on this are biased by my rewatching game of thrones season 1 over the past 48 hours, but the 2016 presidential election in many ways is like...game of thrones

well it's reasonable to want to try and predict things long term rather than just talking about today's poll numbers, and i'm certainly not ruling out a brokered convention, but at this point the republican primary is utterly unpredictable even by people with advanced understandings of psychopathology.

as for all those armed right-wing would-be insurgents, i find them to be nearly as intimidating as anonymous.

but what about THIS

http://a5.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/w_652/heyjbbfunkk0uflog7tz.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Z0yuGaG.jpg

well he's got my vote

brokered-convention talk is like the stories about 'what happens if everyone ties?' at the end of the baseball season

The party's coalition-ness is important as regards when people turn out to vote for that party's candidate in the Presidential election, are they likely to look at the other contests also being voted that day and think "I know nothing about this person except the party name next to them, that's good enough for me"? The Democrats seem to have that still together, the Republicans not so much, as evidenced by the fact that their leading candidate is a pretty shit republican.

https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/silver-gop-five-ring-circus-jindal.png

this is driving me crazy, because i don't see what the big differences are, i see a fight over how far to take anti-government, free market, pro-militarism principles to their logical conclusions

yeah at this point I think the differences within the coalition are more about where someone falls on the crazy spectrum than any given policy belief. like, when 50% of the party was backing trump+carson, what does that say about the big tent republican party?

WTF? It says that the evangelicals aren't getting nearly enough love from the big tent GOP recently, which is, you know, kind of big news for the GOP. Maybe only 3rd or 4th on the list of "why we're fucked", but still.

Yeah but what's a tangible evangelical principle they don't have covered? I mean the GOP has been anti-abortion for as long as I can remember. If we're talking about something like "faith in God" I'd argue that's basically an empty principle and something too complex for 538 to really measure anyway

the Republicans not so much, as evidenced by the fact that their leading candidate is a pretty shit republican.

otoh, the Dems' leading candidate is a quality Republican.

xp that's a problem for 538 though (I don't think this election's being very kind to a site whose thing it is to start a sentence in every article with "statistically speaking..") - it's not an empty principle (more a "you know it when you see it") to the Carson supporters, and if they won't fall in line behind another candidate then that's a problem. And if that candidate is Cruz, that may still be a problem.

mookieproof otm on brokered-convention talk. It came up last time when Teahadis were deemed insufficiently enthusiastic about Romney, it will come up now because large segments of the party can't stand the polling leaders. It hasn't happened since the days of mutton-chop side-whiskers and it won't happen now.

Dr. C.: "the 2016 presidential election in many ways is like...game of thrones"

Needs more tits, imo.

evangelicals love carson and cruz and have come out for candidates they were more lukewarm about than trump

For those interested, I found this interactive online tool for sorting out the delegate situation. Looks like it'll be super helpful for me because I'm super ignorant about that stuff.

Dr. C.: "the 2016 presidential election in many ways is like...game of thrones"

just for the record, this was Karl Malone. i know nothing about game of thrones.

my bad sorry

Obviously, we couldn't be prouder.

http://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2b9fe24f9db596c42720e5ee5cdac56749a9f432/0_112_2916_1750/master/2916.jpg?w=620&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=8cc00186c068fe5e2a01281cd39eb286

i don't really know how to start with this, so bear with me (also: i've been an accidental asshole on ilm. put that aside, for now).

i want to chime in here once, and never again. i am a layman: i enjoy reading this thread, i understand every word of it, but i just don't have the type of political brain that some of you do, to normally actually engage with this thread, and so i'll only post this one time.

(although my politics are pretty unsophisticated, i consider myself a greeny - american socialist -- please forgive me).

after reading the news yesterday of the chance of a brokered republican convention, in which trump could actually win the nomination, i began to feel... frightened.
if he has a chance of winning the nomination, he has a chance of winning the presidency (we're in unchartered territory, now).
i really feel like a lot of you underestimate how stupid the united states populace is, sometimes.
just glance at the polls of hillary voters that also agree with his muslim ban - and, that should tell you how stupid and confused so many people are.

i'm just trying to say: if trump actually wins the nomination, it will galvanize people like me, and i will get in touch with my local democratic party office, and go door-to-door. it will be my responsibility to my muslim friends, and to my black family members. i wouldn't be able to live with myself, otherwise.

(forgive me. i'm not like you guys that normally post here, and i'll never make a post like this again, here.)

i really feel like a lot of you underestimate how stupid the united states populace is, sometimes.

oh, i don't think we do

brokered republican convention clickbait = media doing its job to keep the circus fun

it sure can be a stupid, confusing (and frightening) place mr mash

Trump has no chance of winning the nomination. None. That was true months ago and nothing has changed it.

x-post. shut up.

I'd put his chances well above zero, any candidates or political operatives not planning for this are pretty foolish. Predictions of his imminent flame out have proven extremely wrong so far.

after reading the news yesterday of the chance of a brokered republican convention, in which trump could actually win the nomination, i began to feel... frightened.

trump definitely extremely frightening regardless of whether he gets the nomination let alone the presidency b/c he represents a resurgence of unclouded fascist politics and the media's (even the handwringing media's) helpless lust to stare at them. (i.e. should another, more powerful candidate in the future harness similar forces they will be buoyed by the american media landscape regardless of how many members of it go in for some edward r murrow responsibility cosplay.) however talking about a brokered convention at this point is just kind of silly because there haven't even been any primaries yet, there isn't really any sign yet of trump having the right kind of numbers to trigger a brokered convention (as dr casino describes in much better detail), and the only reason it seems to the media that the race has been going forever with no consensus is that they started covering the race in dec 2012 and the reason they did that is either the mayan calendar shift or they want to sell you stuff.

DrC otm and even if he did win the nomination he has no chance of winning the general.

this is sad/hilarious in its level of total delusion:

In the new national survey, three-quarters of Republicans said Trump would have a chance of winning the general election if nominated, significantly more than say so of any other GOP candidate.

"Donald Trump is saying what 95 percent of the people of this country, that belong to this country, that were born and raised in this country, feel and think," said 83-year-old J.W. Stepp, a registered Republican who lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

For the sake of perspective, it is perhaps healthy to keep in mind that, for all of the vocal support the lurching buttplug has received, Trump has yet to receive a single actual vote. I mean duh, but still.

xpost Despite its historical lack of precedent, 95% of Americans agree on something. Never mind the fact that you'd have trouble finding a single thing that 95% of a room of 100 random people agreed on.

"Donald Trump is saying what 95 percent of the people of this country, that belong to this country, that were born and raised in this country, feel and think," said 83-year-old J.W. Stepp, a registered Republican who lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

shit that looks like an onion etc

the fascist "anyone who disagrees with me does not belong here or was not born and raised here" overtones are obvious.

Arizona is a political cesspool btw.

Amazing that this 83 year old Trump supporter has such a grasp on the inner thoughts of 318 million people.

no true scotsman fallacy ftw.

monster mash: "after reading the news yesterday of the chance of a brokered republican convention, in which trump could actually win the nomination, i began to feel... frightened."

I empathize but this is backwards: the brokered convention is only being talked about as a means to KEEP Trump away from the nomination (if it were to happen, which it almost certainly won't).

To restore my optimism, I look to messages like this David Ignatius piece. The argument there is that people be crazy sometimes but we mostly revert back to something more-or-less resembling normalcy. It may never satisfy large numbers of the discontented (right or left), but we tend to find an equilibrium. Whatever happens next year, Trumpism is not where the electorate will settle long-term.

guys have you spent much time with 83 year olds?

Oh and, just in case no one else says this to monster mash:

i'm just trying to say: if trump actually wins the nomination, it will galvanize people like me, and i will get in touch with my local democratic party office, and go door-to-door. it will be my responsibility to my muslim friends, and to my black family members. i wouldn't be able to live with myself, otherwise.

Right there with you, and also thanks for saying so.

guys have you spent much time with 83 year olds?

― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Friday, December 11, 2015 8:40 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well yeah it's not funny because it's crazy it's funny because it's crazy in exactly the right way. this guy literally voted for goldwater.

(back when he was reasonable.)

as someone who once worked in a congressional office in arizona i can tell you that more than half of the ppl who called in talked and sounded exactly like that 83-year-old (or worse).

the issue with trump is not an "imminent flame-out." i was among those expecting one of those, yeah, but the thing is it doesn't matter. he doesn't have to flame out in order to have no chance. he is massively unpopular with the people whose votes he needs to court. he has nowhere to grow. he faces huge and well-moneyed institutional forces that want him to lose. he is "leading" with 25-30% of the vote in a field of ten non-zero candidates, most of whose supporters are never going to switch their votes to him. his closest rival ideologically (cruz) is overwhelmingly better-liked by the republican electorate, and at least marginally more acceptable to the party leadership, not because they like him but because it's obvious trump is the kiss of death for the party. and yes - - - the brokered convention scenario is that, in the extremely, extremely unlikely event that we end up there, the party has every resource at its disposal to lock out trump, and trump has basically nothing to offer anybody there since all the other delegates are party apparatchiks, sitting officials, etc,. who were sent there by people voting "not trump." what's his path to victory again?

dlh otm - imo the thing to worry about with trump is not "he might win" but "right this minute he is fanning the flames of hatred." he's dangerous as a demagogue with a voice and a media platform, not as a potential president of the united states. he is, indeed, saying what 95 perecent of the 83-year-old registered Republicans who live in Phoenix, Arizona, that belong to the Republican Party, that were born and raised 83 years ago in this country, feel and think.

haha yes to all that

basically the media loves a Sarah Palin, and he's Sarah Palin a year early and louder and richer and shrewder. Again, few people are paying attention to this shit now.

i think trump's dog and pony show represents like 15% of the country and they're primarily not living in big cities and they appear to be terrified for domestic issues that are somehow easier to confront/manifest as xenophobia, racism and classism (the last of these more justifiable of course). Trump's willingness to play a character that speaks to this vocal and hyperventilating minority is deeply vile and presents an unelectable option. Like everyone else, I'm having a hard time seeing the ultimate end game here, short of a scooby-doo style mask removal, an inexplicable dystopian gestalt shift or trump walking away "to spend more time with his family". Whatever the case, history is not going to be kind to this political era.

lol "playing a character"