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

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'

charlotte rampling over here

fuck you

tick tock white walker

no really, fuck you

Get ready, gang, for Tom Delay has the dope: FBI 'ready to indict' Hillary Clinton over private email use.

number of times "The FBI" has issued an indictment: 0

this reinforces something I was thinking the other day that doesn't seem to get reiterated often, which is that "outsider" candidates Trump and Cruz are disproportionately benefiting from the fact that there are just *too many fucking candidates* in the race. I'm inclined to think Trump's got a ceiling on his support within the party, but since none of the other poorly-polling establishment candidates are willing to get out of the race *or* savage the frontrunners it makes it look like Trump and Cruz are doing waaaaaay better than they actually are. I don't think either of those guys can command a majority of votes in the party primary (much less in the general), but because the actual GOP majority is so fragmented, it gives them this air of inevitability/invulnerability. The fact that neither Christie, Kasich, Bush, or Rubio are willing to give it up is actually quite dangerous for the party at this point, it's crazy.

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

wow, how did i miss pataki dropping out

i do recall reading something a few months ago predicting that all the jackass billionaire pac money being able to prop up so many favorite pet candidates fucks up the process (esp for a party like the gop which has usually been quick to pick the next in line and rally around them quickly), keeps these losers alive well after they should've dropped out and makes it impossible for a candidate that might have emerged in previous primary seasons to emerge. otoh a single vote has yet to be cast. highly recommend that fivethirtyeight piece, i've seen alot of dumb gloating pieces going 'lol nate silver was wrong' but he actually looks into why some of his and others assumptions about this race may have been wrong, why that's interesting, and what it could mean.

yeah i'd never put together that citizens united might really fuck with them; totally changes the donor - candidate - party triangle

Jerry Falwell endorsed Trump

I wonder if next time around the super PAC donors are going to be so eager to shovel money into under-performing campaigns. Jeb's gotta be the worst investment ever.

538's good at predicting actual votes/elections so yeah any crowing about their demise seems v premature, to say the least

maybe jeb is waiting for the voting and thinking maybe a miracle can happen but as far as i can tell he's staying in purely to fuck over rubio and to keep trying to tell trump that the jerk store called

xposts

if 3 of the 4 establishment guys (christie, kasich, bush, rubio) dropped out and all of their supporters consolidated into support for the remaining megaestablishment candidate, that would still leave them around 22-23%, as of now. which would make rubio (or bush? still can't imagine christie or kasich as the lone establishment wolf) look a lot better, sure, but it wouldn't exactly upend the primaries.

i, too, have trouble believing trump would ever get past 50% support, even among republicans. but iirc the last year has been full of doubts that he would ever make it into August without saying so terribly racist that he lost all support (he fulfilled his end of the bargain, admittedly), that he would ever make it to 20%, then 30%, then 40%. there is no underestimating the awfulness of this country. i place my imaginary $ bet on the side of total ignorance

The fact that neither Christie, Kasich, Bush, or Rubio are willing to give it up is actually quite dangerous for the party at this point, it's crazy.

so you want one of the presumed beneficiaries ofa "let's not nominate a nut" movement to just drop out before anybody votes, out of some i'm-just-not-the-guy nobility. Makes sense!

I mean, pick one of those four estabguys. Can you imagine everybody else's supporters saying, "Why of course! Him!"

I sort of can actually, but that's obviously the GOP's problem right now

https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry/status/692026872939593728

John Rocker endorses Trump

ugh i just lost a really long post about this but basically I do think the establishment-consolidation thing is still a viable possibility, if less compelling than it was when I was writing about "Bocephus" in December... i.e. before Carson's people finished filtering over to Cruz. but nonetheless: nobody who is supporting rubio, bush, christie or kasich has trump or cruz as their second, third, fourth, or fifth choice. there's just way too much distance - they would have bailed already if not! cruz DOES have more room to grow than trump IMO, because of the remaining carson supporters, and the marginal numbers from huckabee and santorum. all trump can hope for from the small-potatoes crowd is maybe a portion of paul and fiorina voters.

people dropping out won't happen out of altruism obviously. but it still will happen. the severe elongation of the campaign/news enterprise makes it seem like "wow, trump is still leading, that must mean something" when very little has actually "happened." the day after iowa is usually prime time for people who had no chance to try and make a dignified exit. "well, we made a good try of it, yadda yadda, very crowded field, yadda yadda, mainstream media giving the spotlight to a few headline-grabbing candidates, thanks to everybody." i mean you certainly don't do it the day before iowa because hey, you never know - - - maybe your closest competitor is hit by some big scandal that week or you suddenly catch fire at the last second the way santorum did last time. everybody's thinking that could be them. but everyone also knows that if that doesn't happen for them, they can't do this forever. agreed though that the super PAC backing has certainly made it possible for doomed candidacies to keep rolling, who would not have done so in other races. so maybe that will continue to be different.

the day after new hampshire will probably be more interesting for the whole "establishment candidates' prisoners' dilemma" thing. christie for example has put all his chips there as the best chance to emerge as the front-runner of the non-front-runners. if he actually gets beat by kasich (who's now in striking distance of third place there!) it may be time for him to make that little speech.

Oh man, if Kasich becomes the establishment rallying point...

The first half of the FiveThirtyEight article is kind of terrible (though 'I don't think this election's being very kind to a site whose thing it is to start a sentence in every article with "statistically speaking.."') - they point out the misunderstanding in The Party Decides after using it as shorthand for The Party, Deciding for the last six months, and boil it down to "You ought to pay attention to what influential people who care about a party nomination are doing, since they can have a lot of say in the outcome.", which is literally influential people are... influential?

amazing that this race is such that certain key facts are obscured: ted cruz is a creepy little snake:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us/politics/before-rise-as-outsider-ted-cruz-played-inside-role-in-2000-recount.html

Mr. Cruz said he had collected the pages and marched into Mr. Baker’s office, handing him the stack.

Mr. Baker, he said, asked him what it meant. Mr. Cruz began reading furiously.

“It means it’s over,” Mr. Cruz recalled saying. “We’ve won.”

Mr. Baker looked up and nodded, Mr. Cruz wrote, before placing a call to Crawford, Tex. “Well, Mr. President,” Mr. Baker said, according to Mr. Cruz, “how does it feel?”

“Chills ran down my spine,” Mr. Cruz wrote.

For Mr. Baker, the exchange was apparently less memorable.

“I do recall Ted being in my office along with others,” Mr. Baker said in a statement. “But I don’t remember the specific events about how I learned of the Supreme Court’s decision.”

He called Mr. Cruz a “bright legal mind” with whom he had interacted sparingly.

It's obscure?

Mr. Cruz began reading furiously.

I might die from giggles

*reads furiously*

xp RealClearPolitics has Kasich in third place, having recently dropped down from second! Though that is largely due to one wackadoo poll that had Kasich within 7 points of Trump.

lol the times is really going all out today

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/us/politics/as-supreme-court-clerk-ted-cruz-made-death-penalty-his-cause.html?_r=0

Playing basketball in the building’s “highest court in the land,” he said “my bad” to the colleagues he elbowed wildly on his way to the hoop.

...

The year Mr. Cruz and the others clerked, many of the roughly 80 cases taken up by the justices made major news. For a case about the constitutionality of a law regulating Internet pornography, Mr. Cruz watched X-rated sex scenes on a computer with Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O’Connor.

...

But Mr. Cruz usually reserved his enthusiasm for his unsparing death penalty memos or the late nights when a prisoner from the appeals circuit under Chief Justice Rehnquist’s oversight was slated for execution. On those nights, when he was responsible for addressing the flurry of 11th-hour defense motions, he would rouse the chief justice at home, give his recommendation, get the chief justice’s vote and then write up a memo that explained why the chief justice had voted to deny an emergency postponement of the execution.

Per custom, Mr. Cruz, whom some clerks recalled as speaking flippantly of the execution during those solemn nights, would circulate that memo to the other clerks on duty, who would then call their bosses to vote on the appeal.

During one of those late-night executions, some clerks received an additional message from Mr. Cruz on the internal email pleading for more collegiality, especially toward him.

“We should all try and get along,” Mr. Cruz wrote.

Jerry Falwell endorsed Trump

that's Junior; i keep forgetting the old one is dead

Today I learned in the Florida recount story that Bush, presumably W, is a moderate.

Mr. Cruz watched X-rated sex scenes on a computer with Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O’Connor.

excellent tableau

ha no shit? i don't think i knew that

xp to Dr M

xps lol @ "establishment candidates' prisoners' dilemma"

http://www.modernmedicaldictionary.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/three_stooges_explained-e1428012934830.jpg

A more powerful analogy, I believe.

ha

RE: the possibility of Trump to win over a majority of republican voters, if you dig into the less reported sub-poll results it suggests that quite a few could be convinced. take the latest CNN poll (pg. 15):

http://i.imgur.com/lSGrAFi.jpg

81% wouldn't be "upset" with a Trump nomination. and that number might increase as the election heats up and apocalyptic warnings begin circulating. not being "upset" doesn't translate into votes, of course. but trump beats both cruz and rubio on "enthusiastic" support, as well.