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

or John Paul Stevens! Better answeer

"opposite party from the president who appointed him" that is. Until the Reaganites, SCOTUS justices routinely disappointed their appointers.

55, 60, 61, 65, 67, 77, 79, 79, 82.

Yeah all those people are definitely going to be hanging around for the next half decade

Ginsberg will retire when Sanders or Clinton's elected for sure.

yeah i think so too

Who can find the betting odds on Reagan's dudes working through 2020? They'll be pushing 85 by then.

well, they'll retire when Christie is elected.

Roberts + His Furious Five:

http://afscmemn.org/sites/afscmemnd6.prometheuslabor.com/files/images/supreme_court_five.jpg

Hateful 5.

rubio polling fifth in nh!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/25/top-sessions-aide-joins-trump-campaign/

my god those maniacs are really gonna nominate donald trump for president

They like him--they really like him.

roberts is so fucking young =\

http://a3.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fit,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTE4MDAzNDEwODI5OTM2MTQy.jpg

Miller, 30

jesus

it can't be that hard to be a trump policy advisor

'keep saying whatever you want, I guess'

"hey check out this cool thing these guys tweeted"

"oh wait they're nazis"

"eh who cares"

Long Nate Silver thing that uses a book from a few years ago (The Party Decides) to try to figure out how Trump is upending or circumventing the idea of the party falling in line:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-republican-party-may-be-failing/

I'll again bring up something that basically no one agreed with me about four years ago--that at one point, just before Michigan, Romney was closer to blowing the nomination than anyone who believed in his iron-clad inevitability would admit. Obviously he did go on to win, and I don't expect that anyone who dismissed that idea at the time would change his mind today. But if Trump does get the nomination, maybe the Republican nomination in 2012 will at least be viewed as a transitional run-up to this one, where the inevitable winner almost got blindsided by actual voters who just didn't like him.

(Long Nate Silver ≠ Long Dong Silver.)

ha that's interesting -- both silver and the "PD" thesis are taking a bath this time around! i'll have to read that.

I think no matter whether Trump wins or not it could easily be argued that the tumult this time around builds on the tumult in twelve. GOP never did anything about the fundamental problems, and it became even more crazy.

Yeah, the 538-thing is pretty fun. They are kinda floundering at the site, but they're pretty open about the fact that they're floundering. Am listening to their new podcast atm.

the inevitable winner almost got blindsided by actual voters who just didn't like him

the crazy thing is that voters of the Republican party like Trump so much. this is radically different from the GOP I grew up knowing. the past five decades have seen a nationwide sorting process where all the yahoos have deserted the Democratic Party and identify exclusively as Republicans. In the 60's on the whole the yahoos identified as democrats. Trump just puts a bright spotlight on this fact.

Wait was there really any chance that Romney would lose to Gingrich or Santorum??? I get that Mittens wasn't super popular but compared to those dudes he's still a winning bet.

You'd have to reconstruct the whole timeline, but Romney seemed extremely weak up to that point. He lost Iowa, won NH, lost South Carolina, won Florida and Nevada, lost Colorado/Missouri/Minnesota, and won Maine by 2% over Ron Paul. If he'd lost Michigan, one of his two supposed home states (and where his father was popular), I honestly felt like everything might have unraveled. I don't know exactly who would have stepped in--I know, who was left?--but maybe Bush would have entered, long before he was this year's joke. I don't know. Anyway, Romney won Michigan just barely, by 3%, even though he spent a ton of money. He also won Arizona that day, and he went on from there. (With still a couple of setbacks left.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2012

Anyway, the inevitable candidate did indeed win. But all that craziness with Perry and Cain and Gingrich and Santorum does, to me, feel like a rough sketch of what's going on this year, except this time it looks like the foot is completely off the brake.

Not just off the brake, but I would posit that the entire linkage is gone, with every bolt cheerily yanked out by supporters who are the end result of 50 years of Goldwater & beyond resentment-stoking.

Just to extend the metaphor a little more.

There's a feeling where you could have Richard Hofstatder come back after being departed for 40+ years, look around, and say, "Yep, not too suprising. Romney's kid flamed out that hard, huh?"

ha yeah i forgot how decently Santorum did last time

i sure as shit voted for him in my state's open primary

You'd have to reconstruct the whole timeline, but Romney seemed extremely weak up to that point.

I won't dispute he was weak (he was ultimately a weak candidate) but I don't think there was really ever a point where it looked like there was a candidate who would step in and take the mantle of the "favorite".

O'Malley is 100% after a cabinet position, right? He can't possibly be thinking of 2024, least of all based on his dynamic campaign this time around.

He probably could've had that without running for president and raising the profile of his mediocre record.

what did Pitchfork award it?

probably higher than his percentage of the vote

Hillary's yelling a lot tonight. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, proceed apace.)

it doesn't matter if you're 'weak' if no one else is stronger

https://media.giphy.com/media/4oZCwGRbSbzva/giphy.gif

so who won the town hall?

i'm giving 'em all bear hugs.

i read that Hil has been talking about her relationship with Christ in the last week, so she's reaching waaaaay down into that bag o' tricks.

that was my first reaction too, but at least in the case of the town hall last night, she was asked a question about it answered it.

“I would say I am a Democrat because of my Christian values, but many of my friends would say they are Republicans because of their Christian values,” Mrs. Manning said. “So in these next few months as I am supporting you and defending you to my Republican friends,” she continued, “I am just curious, how you would say your beliefs align with the Ten Commandments and is that something that’s important to you?"

and her answer, in part:

The famous discussion on the Sermon on the Mount should be something that you really pay attention to. There’s a lot of great Bible studies: What does the Sermon on the Mount really mean? What is it calling us to do and to understand? Because it sure does seem to favor the poor and the merciful and those who in worldly terms don’t have a lot but who have the spirit that God recognizes as being at the core of love and salvation.

So there is much to be learned and I have been very disappointed and sorry that Christianity, which has such great love at its core, is sometimes used to condemn so quickly and judge so harshly. When I think part of the message that I certainly have tried to understand and live with is to look at yourself first, to make sure you are being the kind of person you should be in how you are treating others, and I am by no means a perfect person, I will certainly confess that to one and all, but I feel the continuing urge to try to do better, to try to be kinder, to try to be more loving, even with people who are quite harsh.

So, I think you have to keep asking yourself, if you are a person of faith, what is expected of me and am I actually acting the way that I should? And that starts in small ways and goes out in very large ones, but it’s something that I take very seriously. So thank you for asking.”

that seems to be a pretty thoughtful response. it's a lot better than what i would come up with if someone asked me about what i thought about my beliefs, that's for sure!

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/25/hillary-clinton-gets-personal-on-christ-and-her-faith/

ugh

i think Mrs Manning (the name of my 2nd-grade teacher btw) should spring the Ten Commandments on Bernie next. As they aren't exclusively "Christian."

Hil's response isn't substantively different from W's on the same issues, and doesn't specify if the guvmint is obliged to be charitable as well as the individual.

R Reich:

"The other day Bill Clinton attacked Bernie Sanders’s proposal for a single-payer health plan as unfeasible and a 'recipe for gridlock.'

"Yet these days, nothing of any significance is feasible and every bold idea is a recipe for gridlock.

“I’ve known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old, and have nothing but respect for her. In my view, she’s the most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have.... But Bernie Sanders is the most qualified candidate to create the political system we should have, because he’s leading a political movement for change.”

http://robertreich.org/post/138036377515

Elsewhere, George Pataki endorsed Rubio, so ain't no stoppin' him now.

because he’s leading a political movement for change - open to voting for bernie but here's the part of the argument i don't remotely buy

'But Bernie Sanders is the most qualified candidate to create the political system we should have, because he’s leading a political movement for change.'

Except on reparations, because that is a bridge too far...

In a general election campaign, a pro-reparations stance would smoke him. Reality.

Stick to Denmark.

hell yeah i'll raise taxes evokes the ghost of mondale for sure but i'm not it's anywhere near the political poison it was depending on details and pitch

lol 'reality'