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

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.

yeah I dunno what's gonna happen. Maybe Reagan will finally get in this.

I don't see why sitting senators are going to have much impact at all.

Endorsements and local machinery matter

I guess it depends on whether they're liked themselves by their constituents. If they are, and they have negative things to say about Cruz, I think it'd matter a little; if they're not, then no.

I would question how much any of they are liked in general in spite of their ability to win re-elecitons. Like what would be an example of a sitting GOP senator that could exercise influence over how a state votes?

Anyway, they still have a secret weapon.

http://g03.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1VQR4JFXXXXaSXpXXq6xXFXXXz/Superman-Mitt-Romney-OIL-PAINTING-ON-CANVAS-Hand-Painted-Classical-ART-FREE-SHIPPING-TO-ALL-OVER.jpg

(Kidding, yes.)

People are gonna vote for who Mitch McConnell likes?

How about that Bernie, you guys?

the question is, will the GOP nominate Bernie over Hillary?

"People are gonna vote for who Mitch McConnell likes?"

Don't think it is necessarily that people care who McConnell likes, but a guy like that has his state' contacts in a state party structure to get the vote out and the connections to people with cash to cut checks for distributing signage etc. Literally the people in the GOP offices in the state often are those senator's people, many are there because of past elections working with such a senator.

Endorsements and local machinery matter

― Οὖτις, Sunday, January 10, 2016 7:04 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, they're also important in opening donor's pockets. weird to see everyone arguing that because senators are lame that they are somehow not major power players within their state.

xp

earlnash otm, makes the point I was trying to in far stronger fashion

you guys only get to play this game for another 5 months or so

baseball can't start soon enough

I'm questioning the extent of their power. Getting vote out can be handled by campaigns and I don't think Cruz and Trump are going to suffer from not having enough signage.

Getting vote out can be handled by campaigns

Not really

Coordination w local resources is always key, canpaigns dont have the time/money to create local political infrastructures in every state

I can imagine it would be key if there was a close race. I'm not sure that an "establishment candidate" will ever get close this time.

Trump's campaign is hurting his brand in a big way.

ha

when the ruling classes decide you have no class, that's as low as it goes

i saw a headline that sam wang think's trump will be the nominee, but digging around a little on the PEC website i can't see that claim specifically

http://election.princeton.edu/

the 'trump will fail' punditry all seems pretty tautological to me. he just has to fall at some point, so he will!

damn stray apostrophe

i was asked, god knows why, to explain to a stranger why he won't be president the other night and went with

1) no one like this has been nominated, at least not since we got running water

2) a steady third of our populace is congenitally stupid, not 45%+

3) the GOP will change the rules/sabotage him rather than commit certain downballot suicide

3) is the most compelling reason

Sam Wang // Jan 10, 2016 at 2:32 pm

Jesse, a quick take.

In summer/fall, it was probably appropriate to rely heavily on The-Party-Decides because polls lacked any predictive power. The question in my mind is why the FiveThirtyEight people have not updated that prior using polls. It is Silver’s style to react slowly to new data.

Also, correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think they have done an analysis like what I posted last week. Even if they did, they (and I) now have a problem: The-Party-Decides and poll-based indicators are now pointing in very different directions. What now???

In my view, this is because the national GOP has been moving toward crisis since 1994. Therefore I would say

Probability that The-Party-Decides will fail = 30%.
Probability that poll-based predictions will fail =15%.

Based on that, I would guess that Trump is favored now over Rubio. (For now, I think Cruz is less likely because he scores so low on ranked-preference polls.)

As for “Why Rubio?,” this is a consequence of The-Party-Decides. If one accepts that premise, then the only alternative is Jeb Bush based on endorsements, money, and officeholding experience. This prediction fails is if The-Party-Decides has waning influence. In national HuffPost averages, in January 2012 current and former officeholders were supported by about 80% of respondents. As of today that number is about 25%.

comment from his 1/7 post

i honestly don't think it'll get that far, Shakes. but i spose i could be wrong.

GOP knows that if Trump gets the nomination, opposing voters will hit the polls in droves. They need someone less noxious or they're basically handing the presidency to Hillary.

i honestly don't think it'll get that far, Shakes. but i spose i could be wrong.

I don't think so either but the x factor here (as I've said before) is what happens when Trump loses primaries - at this point I would bet he loses Iowa, for ex. But what his reaction to being a LOSER are instead of a winner will be, I have no idea. He's unpredictable.

are

does the GOP have the power to manage 3) these days?

if he wins he'll be a black swan but those happen all the time.

Even when he loses, he'll spin it as a win somehow. It'll be the people of Iowa who are a bunch of losers.

With the republican establishment looking so weak these days, it is easy to forget how much control they exert over the nominating convention, esp. the rules committee.

^^^

they may not control much in terms of candidates or policy, but they control the party machinery - that's pretty much *all* they control at this point

and that is to a large degree why Sanders won't be nominated by the other assholes

(assuming he wins some primaries)

3) the GOP will change the rules/sabotage him rather than commit certain downballot suicide

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, January 11, 2016 1:53 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

3) is the most compelling reason

― Οὖτις, Monday, January 11, 2016 1:54 PM

but changing the rules to sabotage him could be a form of suicide for the GOP as well. imagine that he maintains his hold on ~35-40% of republican voters. then the GOP sabotages him and someone like rubio becomes the candidate, and he loses to clinton in the general election. is it likely that trump would stay relatively quiet about how he was sabotaged, with his former supporters continuing to vote republican, remaining as part of the GOP base? or is it more likely that trump would never shut up about what happened, ever, while his supporters lose the remaining scraps of their minds obsessing about a conspiracy theory that's actually true?

look, a split is coming for the party either way, my prediction is they go down trying to preserve their own power, and this is how they would do that.

cults of personality haven't been so good, historically speaking, at upsetting the two-party balance, I don't see any reason why Trump would be any different. Trump might bolt the party and take chunks of the base with him, and the party would be weakened (at least temporarily) but it's a tall order for Trump to be able to thoroughly destroy the GOP in such a manner.

i'm not convinced trump *would* be downballot suicide, just on an instinctual level, but i'd need to look into the polling nerd stuff on that

he would def be downballot suicide, the Dem turnout would get a huge boost, significant chunk of GOP voting bloc would possibly not vote at all

Maybe if Trump loses Iowa by a significant margin his subsequent rants to his followers will finally transform the "Fuck Iowa, why do they get to go first anyway" feeling that everyone expresses every four years into an actual movement?

changing the rules to sabotage him could be a form of suicide for the GOP as well

yeah, this passed through my mind, certainly. My main argument against it would be that the mean national memory is now -- how long does a Real Housewives season last?

I've been reading Dem forecasts of the Death of the GOP for about 20 years...

a single-issue 3rd party dedicated to kicking iowa out of the union