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

rose loves mitt, thinks it's 2012

Broaddrick struck me then as the most credible of the accusers, which is to say her story has enough ambiguities for me to believe he might have done what she said. But I had a dim memory of her during the height of the Jones-Lewinsky farrago of her filing an affidavit denying the charges, and I was right. Plus, imagining HRC as Lucrezia Borgia thanking Broaddrick for staying quiet is beyond Oliver Stone's talent.

the MSM generally portrays the Billary Foundation as a vehicle for them to travel the world, curing disease

Bill Clinton is probably a rapist (#ilx #woodyallen), but we already know he's a war criminal, so wtf

xxpost I think she filed that affidavit back when she didn't want any publicity and was intimidated by Clinton. I don't see it as disqualifying the way Sid Blumenthal does

At this point in the American presidential race it's really a matter of picking the war criminal you can best live with.

Potential war criminal. It's a difficult feat for, say, a governor to pull off.

I dunno, turning away war refugees has to be a misdemeanor somewhere.

Creep:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdK7a8EuUPc

I meant once they're in the seat they'll be war criminals; no one is going to immediately cease the Middle East drone strike campaign. (not even Bernie, I fear)

A robust majority of Americans support President Obama's plan to conduct airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, according to an ABC News/ Washington Post poll out Wednesday. In the survey, 70 percent of adults say they support the airstrikes, while 26 percent say they do not.

v unlikely to have a mainstream candidate represent a policy this one-sided. curious whether there have been candidates who supported something supported by only 26% of americans

Bernie's record re the Middle East is kinda awful; hence i am not really a supporter.

the criticism is fair but given that an outright non-interventionist (or pacifist) is unlikely to get the nomination in this or any other year, and given that no president is going to be able to dismantle the military-industrial complex overnight (or even in eight years), i'm willing to overlook my quibbles with some of bernie's past stances b/c HRC's foreign policy is so much worse.

Dream team: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wade-norris/bernie-sanders-hints-eliz_b_8928406.html

that would be... pretty cool?

Warren needs to stay in the senate guys

really wouldn't be too worried about this

https://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/3/A70-1888

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Ben-Carson-asks-kids-to-point-out-the-class-dummy-6745838.php

pobrecito:

Koch said he was unimpressed by the rest of the Republican field.

"It is hard for me to get a high level of enthusiasm because the things I'm passionate about and I think this country urgently needs aren't being addressed," he explained.

And though the Kochs' political operation has highlighted their priorities to the candidates, "it doesn't seem to faze them much," Koch said. "You think we could have a little more influence."

He can console himself with the knowledge that the dough invested in buying state legislatures was well spent.

"FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUCK THIS"
http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scalefit_630_noupscale/568f991c1a00002d005941f1.jpeg?cache=hhswptd1jp

http://www.people.com/article/ben-carson-fifth-grader-worst-student?xid=socialflow_facebook_peoplemag

He did have a valid point--maybe not the best way to make it.

~maybe~

this 1993 esquire piece on hillary clinton (annotated by the author) has some interesting stuff in it.

"I find Hillary to be very conservative," argues Maggie Williams. "When she talks about rights and responsibilities, it's a very big deal for her." Maggie, to be sure, is Hillary's chief image-maker, but that view is reinforced by a close adviser to the President who says, "In all the meetings I've attended with Hillary, she has never been more liberal than the consensus in the room. And often she's more conservative."

Could the First Lady be a secret soul mate of Bob Dole? I read that last quote to Hillary. Her unhesitating response: "That's probably true."

The marginalia fascinated me. Guess it makes sense that Reagan's two landslide victories would chill the Clintons forever.

Recent media coverage for Bernie seems to be about the fact that Hillary attacked him on guns, whether or not he's mentioning Bill Clinton in his speeches, and nothing else.

this guy's predictions have been v stable and he's been completely unmoved by ... events (i mean there haven't actually been any events, but i guess the failure of trump to drop out is an event)

http://predictwise.com/blog/2016/01/state-of-election-markets-303-days/

is this how it stands?

This is where Rubio’s advantage lies; it is likely that the establishment will consolidate before the non-establishment.

I don't know where this assertion comes from. I mean I get that Trump and Cruz would both seem to be in it until the end. But if you add up Rubio/Christie/Bush/Kasich, it only adds up to 20% total! Carson continues to hang around at ten percent and there are still Rand Paul and Fiorina and Huckabee supporters.

Latter point being it's not at all clear to me that even if Carson, Paul, Fiorina, and Huckabee are all out by a certain point, why would anyone assume those votes go to Rubio?

i think its the idea is that most gop voters are undecided and not captured by those poll numbers, so that when push comes to shove between cruz, trump, or rubio, theyre more likely to say fuck it and vote rubio

and the idea that theyll be more likely to go rubio than cruz or trump is a hunch, really, and not a bad one. trump has some high negs in the party and im guessing theres a lot of "conventional" republicans who dont see him as a true conservative. however, i think a lot of em will go cruz rather than rubio bc of "purity" or something idk i dont get this party.

Yeah, it's not at all clear to me that "the establishment" is a winning voting block or even enough of a winning voting block to overcome splitting between Cruz and Trump.

yeah, thats where im at. like maybe there is a silent majority of gopers who long for prudent leadership to right the ship and rubio is the mccain/romney they rly want, but i think these folks really and truly believe in their stupid hearts that they lost to obama two times because they werent aggressive and conservative enough

like i get their respective negatives, but were McCain, Romney or Dole anywhere near as feckless as Rubio?

its a 3 person race, rubio (i have elected experience and i have "gotten stuff done") has gotta position himself as the anti-trump (i'm an irredeemable asshole and i hate the same people you hate), cruz (im an asshole and i have elected experience) is gonna try to play between the two and probably win

xp

xp my reading says, nah, rubio has way less feck than all of them

Rubio is not getting the nomination.

I'd be more inclined to say Cruz won't get the nomination. That's what I got out of all the talk this morning: just how hated Cruz is within the party, borne out by the reaction to the eligibility flare-up, where even McCain (who obviously hates Trump) wouldn't defend him. Trump is supposedly now being viewed as an acceptable alternative to Cruz.

As a non-American blessedly free from much media coverage of this nonsense, I heard Rubio's voice for the first time today, and that alone made him seem unlikely as a presidential figure

Wait'll you hear Cruz's voice...

You can go through every single one of these, and I'd say 'xx is not getting the nomination'. They should do that thing competitions sometimes do, and say 'no deserving winner', then nominate Ryan for vice president again.

I'd be more inclined to say Cruz won't get the nomination. That's what I got out of all the talk this morning: just how hated Cruz is within the party, borne out by the reaction to the eligibility flare-up, where even McCain (who obviously hates Trump) wouldn't defend him. Trump is supposedly now being viewed as an acceptable alternative to Cruz.

― clemenza,

What's left of the party establishment, which exists only in Sunday morning green rooms, is as usual being stupid. Loathsome or not, Ted Cruz would preserve if not advance their goals. Trump is someone over whom they have no control.

trying to figure out who i should throw my vote to in TN's open primary: Trump or Cruz.

and for me it kind of goes beyond some Operation Chaos shit. like i really, really want these dimbulbs to get the pure, unadulterated loon they've been pining for all these years. it's only fair.

and i say that with the perhaps misguided notion that Cruz would fair little better than Trump against Clinton in the general.

buttload of feck

(xxxpost) Again, going only by the talk this morning--haven't a clue how these people think--that was the specific point that was made, that whereas Trump would sort of fall in line and "make deals," Cruz was a loose cannon.

I can believe they can be so stupid as to shoo away the one nominee who incarnates their contempt for governance. To play that part convincingly you must show contempt for Senate colleagues, and he's done that.

Wait'll you hear Cruz's voice...

I actually think his voice is what's putting him well over Rubio at this point. He offers big pronouncements about the great evil more convincingly because that's his whole schtick. Rubio is less convincing, I think, because he's more detail- and policy-oriented.

I realize the "establishment" is dying or dead. But just as a practical matter, I would think it would be tough to get the nomination if most of the other senators hate you. You've got to go into their states and win primaries--if you've got Trump on one side and a sitting senator or two who hates you on the other, that'd be a difficult needle to thread, wouldn't it? If his unpopularity in the Senate actually is an advantage, then this is a weirder nomination than I even thought.

Cruz sounds other-worldly to me--i.e., not human.