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

again that's the type of thing that seems like it should take down a campaign but to someone already supporting trump it's probably just common sense. why wouldn't you want the best workers in America running your campaign?

running third party for president doesn't make sense if you actually want to be president, sure. but first, that hasn't stopped people wiser than trump from doing exactly that in the past. second, i am not convinced that his primary goal is to become president. trump, even more than being a fascist, is an egomaniacal sociopath. he will do or say absolutely anything to keep people talking about him. he has absolutely zero reason, should he lose the primary, to not run as an independent.

Yeah, I don't know. Kasich, Rand Paul, Christie, Fiorina, Huckabee drop out before Super Tuesday?

and as outlined above, phantom candidate Bocephus is representing a lot of people whose voters are not going to go over to Trump. Mostly Rubio I'd say though obviously Bush is hoping to wrangle them and pull some kind of late surge which could certainly delay the race consolidating. As Carson continues collapsing...

This seems extremely speculative to me. Rubio has no traction I can see, Bush obviously much less. Carson's collapse may have already reached its bottom floor.

nah Carson's goin all the way down

Rubio has no traction I can see

he's the only establishment guy polling double digits

We'll see. He's at 13% at some distance from all the negative media attention.

xp re. Carson

Yeah, double digits for Rubio. He has a shot. I'm not as convinced that a lot of those voting for the others will not end up with Trump, Carson, or Cruz.

his campaign is reminiscent of Fiorina + all those other one-time poll-toppers from last time around - ppl had a brief flirtation with him, he got some good zingers in, then everyone realized he's a moron (except for evangelicals, who are being wooed away by Teddboy)

his = Carson there

anybody with an (r) next to their name will win in kentucky, and their recent electoral history fraud proves it.

fixed

Did you guys see the S.E. Cupp interview with the Trump campaign person who said, "Who cares? They're Muslims." this morning???

This seems extremely speculative to me. Rubio has no traction I can see, Bush obviously much less. Carson's collapse may have already reached its bottom floor.

That's all speculative too, though! And again - those characters don't have to all drop out before Super Tuesday for their supporters to abandon them. Carson's collapse is as new as Rubio and Cruz's rise, so if we can speculate that he's reached his floor (why?), we can also speculate that Rubio hasn't reached his ceiling. I mean, just looking at it on paper, would it be so surprising that the inexperienced candidate who only says crazy things would woo the evangelicals for a while and then burn out completely? Cruz offers them so much more, except those in the real hard core of late-night-radio-fantasy-pyramid-theory believers. We're still nearly two months out from Iowa so assuming the current polling will hold true then just seems odd to me, since it's changed so much even since the last debate or so.

Yeah, Rubio might or might not be the one. We'll see. He has the advantage of being the candidate the party establishment would most like to see win it, and that is a huge advantage. It might turn out that in hindsight, the whole 2015 phase of the race amounted to the GOP determining that Bush was simply not adequate to filling that role, but Rubio was. But again, even if Rubio doesn't work out, the party would still prefer Cruz to Trump.

I'm not as convinced that a lot of those voting for the others will not end up with Trump, Carson, or Cruz.

Really? We are talking here about people whose first choice is Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Rand Paul or Chris Christie. I can imagine that for some of them Trump isn't totally off the list, but probably not many, and surely not their second choice. I'll give you the Fiorina people since she got a lot of "not from the establishment" wind early on. Huckabee's people I feel like would swing Carson if still in the race, Cruz if not, maybe a splash of Trump but either way it'd be slicing up what's currently 1.8% of the pie, not just handing it to the Trump column.

I don't know, Carson has a certain je ne sais quoi? If the 13% who support him didn't abandon ship already, I'm not sure why they would.

because some other religious nutter demonstrates a better chance at winning ie Cruz

well you coulda said that when he was at 20% too. it's not like his numbers have stabilized, they're in free fall xp

So Cruzmentum after Iowa? Because I don't see that he's got it now.

so much of this stuff involves snowball effects of self-fulfilling prophecies, if primary voters realize there's someone with a better chance of winning who says more or less the same kinds of things as the person they initially supported, then they switch over to the one with the better chance of winning. This happens all the time.

xp

conversely if you start to lose - as in, you can't win Iowa or New Hampshire - people desert you

I hope somebody is doing an documentary about the jeb bush campaign cause I would love to see what it's like there right now

Santorum was winning states as late as March 24th last time. In April, you get a string of east coast states - that looks like the point where Romney took it.

A reminder that most people aren't as glued to this as we are, news about crazy stuff that people say gets around at conversational speed.

xp some Cruzmentum if he wins it, a lot obviously if Trump flames out shortly after his first loss - but he's expected to get at least second in Iowa, if he gets that position in New Hampshire then he's on fire.

Also this doesn't look like Cruzmentum?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html

wait who do you think is like Santorum here, Carson...?

xp

all these fuckers are santorum imo

in the colloquial sense

No, I don't think there's a Santorum, really. Trump makes the whole thing different.

I mean, there's no Romney either!

any updates on the trump / cruz shittalk campaign? i could see cruz staring down any trump insult with those beady eyes of his

and then deflecting it using his "brilliant" oratory skillz or some kind of nerd humor

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/11/politics/ted-cruz-donald-trump-leaked-audio/index.html

less than an hour ago Trump retweeted:

Ted Cruz ‏@tedcruz · 5h5 hours ago
The Establishment's only hope: Trump & me in a cage match.

Sorry to disappoint -- @realDonaldTrump is terrific. #DealWithIt

i don't understand why people saying 'the establishment doesn't like cruz' is necessarily bad thing for him

strategic piece of kissassery, so gross

Cruz's obvious hope is that his lack of appeal to the establishment can be used to endear him to the voting populace, who will then hand him a big enough margin of victory that the establishment bends to their will thus allowing him to claim a true populist mantle

sounds like a better plan than most of these guys have

well insofar as it's an actual plan, yeah

Seems to me that the best plan is Trump's - explicit racism, bulldoze truth.

Or just buddy up with the explicit racist until he flames out

so basically, jail

christ New Hampshire isnt til Feb 9. this horseshit is toxic.

don't worry after that it's all unicorns and rainbows

Rubio will not be the nominee and Rubio is a laughing stock.

well those are hardly mutually exclusive

you puttin yr money on Cruz then? Christie's the only other one I can kinda sorta see pulling this off but that's a long shot.

all the (~)bright republicans i know are hoping for rubio as the nominee

I haven't talked to any of my GOP leanin family members in so long, I have no idea who they're backing.

btw

A poll of Republican voters in the early voting state of New Hampshire conducted by public television station WBUR found that Carson's support has fallen to only 6.0 percent from 17 percent in mid-September.

Aw, that almost makes me feel sorry for him.

all the (~)bright republicans

What's a Pepsi Bright Republican?

a republican who has passed the pepsi challenge