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

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

rubio is so un-presidential, i mean look at him, listen to him speak

he's like 15 years old right?

And too thirsty. All our presidents have been well-hydrated gentlemen.

Anyway from this...

http://i.imgur.com/V8Amh5X.jpg?1

...one might be tempted to conclude that the Carson/Trump support is sloshing between the two of them (one's rise is the other's fall and vice versa).

Cruz and Rubio's shared rise to become the only "professionals" with poll traction is clearer than ever. Their rise tracks closely to the falling support of all the other bottom-tier candidates (Bush, Christie, etc.).

Or maybe not. Maybe Bush supporters are defecting to Carson and Fiorina supporters to Rubio. Who the fuck knows? But it's what we have now, so it's what gets discussed.

is Christie persona non grata cuz he hugged Obama that one time?

or is there more to it than that? I can't believe that the GOP cares about corruption/bridgegate in any meaningful way. Do they just hate a fatty?

"The hug" is one of those things much more widely circulated in right-wing infosphere than elsewhere - it stands in for a whole bunch of other stuff and it sticks precisely because his selling point is that he's a "Republican who won in a blue state," who "can get Democrats to vote for him," which with this electorate means he's suspect at the least and a traitor at worst. Which again makes me think that anybody who sees him as their first choice is not about to switch to one of the real wackos.

hug aside, Christie hasn't had a good news day in years

yeah, but since when does a GOP primary voter care about accomplishments? I guess he hasn't had a good media exposure/zinger day either

He got some nice coverage from some of the debates, but some of it was JV debate and all of it turned out to be hitting singles when he needed a home run. But he's clearly playing the "put all his chips on New Hampshire" game, figuring that if Iowa and NH get split between equally unelectable fringe candidates, the "electable" conservative who comes in 2nd in NH, after everybody wrote him off, will look like the angel of redemption.

Fat Angel of Redemption, isn't that a Paul Simon song

(He is, as of the latest polling averages, in third place in NH. If he can make the argument that there are a lot of other places like NH, his campaign might have enough legs in it still to justify how much attention pundits still keep giving him, versus the other 2-percenters.)

haha

there's at least one conflicted Trump supporter who is not on board with his Muslim ban: Rocky Suhayda, the chairman of the American Nazi Party.

In an email to Buzzfeed, Suhayda stated that he didn't think Trump would practically be able to carry out any of his plans because "'mainstream' political whores would block his every move."

“Look," he wrote, "this phrase ‘muslims’ is simply a PC code word to cover the reality of all these THIRD WORLD peoples invading OUR country.”

"Unless Trump plans on ruling by Presidential Decree, I don't see how he would implement ANY of his 'plans,' the rest of the sold out 'mainstream' political whores would block his every move," he said.

However, Suhayda did add that Trump's statements, while maybe a little insincere, echoed the sentiment of the Nazi party. “Donald Trump’s campaign statements, if nothing else, have SHOWN that ‘our views’ are NOT so ‘unpopular’ as the Political Correctness crowd have told everyone they are!

“But, and here’s the kicker - so WHAT do we DO - sit back and heartily congratulate ourselves that our viewpoints are NOT the pariahs that we have been told that they are, and get all warm and fuzzy feeling,” he continued. “OR, do we FINALLY get SERIOUS about what we are supposed to be engaged in?”

another part of christie's appeal was he is a loud angry asshole who is a dick to everyone and trump is way better at this sort of thing than christie is

haha yeah being an actual rich guy means you don't have to say you're sorry