vote for a republican candidate for president

Time for Jeb, I say

christie is a pschopath

christie seems like an electable psychopath which is the most worrying of all?

I don't think christie is a psychopath, he's your run of the mill asshole from jersey

i think cruz is the least likely to win a general election out of these so i guess him? idk

I have the solution!

(leaps off a bridge)

let me preface the statements I'm about to make with acknowledging that I hate all of these choices and would almost rather set myself on fire than actually cast a vote for any of them

HAVING SAID THAT, even though I still think it's virtually impossible for him to win a general election, I cannot countenance or abide the idea of President Trump and would never put him in a position where he could fluke his way into the White House.

John Kasich is a reasonable-seeming man who has done some reasonable-seeming things while saying and doing a bunch of batshit crazy things that seem to now be flying under the radar.

Ted Cruz is possibly the most polarizing political figure you could pick on the Republican side and, if he managed to build consensus in Washington, it would be a consensus that was attempting to frustrate and stymie every policy position he might put forward.

This leaves Rubio, Bush and Christie as the only viable choices on the list.

Rubio spent half his time avoiding being a senator; I don't think we need him avoiding being President.

Bush would probably be mostly harmless but this entire campaign has outed him as someone who is very easily bullied, which is not someone I want to put out there on the international scene as our representative.

This means that the person I feel is most qualified and capable of being our President on the Republican side of the choices listed here is the petty blowhard whose staff killed an old woman as a side-effect of a political vendetta. (I'm less concerned about his ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth, as that's actually a skill that would be useful when dealing with other nations.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go find some gasoline and a match.

ffs I can't even to bring myself to vote for Christie in a fucking ILX poll

I live in New Jersey. The only thing I'd vote for Christie for would be "Which one of these people should we hurl off a cliff first?"

Donald Trump: Totally insane
Ted Cruz: Utterly loathsome
Marco Rubio: Dumb as a stump
Jeb Bush: He's a Bush, plus, Terri Schiavo
Chris Christie: see above
John Kasich: Not totally insane, and doesn't seem to view poor people as enemies of the state, but not actually that much better than the rest (way too into Jesus, even if he keeps a lid on it most of the time)

I have relatives in Cleveland, Akron and Cincinnati so I have been hearing enough about the Kasich Experience to make him a total no-go for me

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/2b/2baebf7b980124d759909743b005b8188a5c5f357ea93de72e6538943c13f652.jpg

lol this poll is going to boil down to "who do you detest less: Christie or Kasich" isn't it

yeah but you might be wasting your imaginary vote on dudes w/ maybe a 5% chance at winning, so it's kinda an easy out. if you limit yourself to who you think could actually win this gets a lot harder.

which is why I think...I've started rooting for a jeb! comeback? I guess?

i think the greatest trick trump/cruz have ever pulled is making the rest of these clowns look like benevolent moderates

why isn't Rand Paul on this ballot?

I included everyone with more than a 0% here: http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-president-republican-nomination

however the best trick trump himself individually has ever pulled is systematically destroying all of them as "strong" candidates, i mean it's almost breathtaking how he's left their carcasses in his wake

I would think that after last night's debate Rand Paul's #s would go up. The Iowans were cheering on his anti-NSA and contrarian middle east tactics

why r u ppl riffing on Keyser Soze

I would think that after last night's debate Rand Paul's #s would go up. The Iowans were cheering on his anti-NSA and contrarian middle east tactics

rand paul has a small loyal posse that cheers for him loudly whenever he talks. if you watched them all it was pretty cringe-worthy cause it felt like when someone's family cheers for them at a recital or something.

iatee,
make's sense. it's would be hard to believe Republicans would cheer on anything other than throwing money at a hopeless war and equipping people who may not be our friends

voted trump bcz i wanna make america great again

can't wait to become a us citizen and vote republican

hell yeah I'm voting for Jeb

http://i.imgur.com/riFc2kO.jpg

trump would yield the most entertaining results but the risk of him actually becoming president is not something i want to gamble on.

kasich acts like the "reasonable" one in debates but he's kind of weird and loopy otherwise. also doubt he would win the nomination since republican voters seem to hate candidates who act reasonable.

christie comes across like the irritable boss in an old sitcom and rubio has the demeanor of someone running for student council president.

bush seems oddly boring and unthreatening compared to most of these guys but the psychological blow of having another bush in the white house would be crushing.

cruz is widely despised on a personal level by a lot of other republicans and would prob have a lot more trouble winning the election than any of the other candidates. so maybe him.

rubio has the demeanor of someone running for student council president.

oh man. good way of putting it

it's Bush, imo - I mean, isn't his campaign largely predicated on the notion -- now proven false, doubtless to the shock and horror of the very same people who spent the better part of 20 years stage-managing the conditions for exactly a scenario like this -- that voters will choose the candidate who seems most rational, most approachable, most believably likable? I'm one of the dinosaur voters his campaign would have had in mind, who'd look at this field and go, woof, I don't like any of 'em but at least Bush doesn't seem like a heartless monster. it would smart to put another Bush in office but not as bad as seeing the Presidency of any of these other bros would smart.

Rubio has the personality of a toaster and the speaking style of an empty salt shaker. I grew up and went to school with frauds like him; it was inevitable that one of them would run for prez.

like I wrote last night: When Rand Paul speaks movingly about getting drug offenders out of jail and scoffing at the platoon of sadists onstage who consider Vlad the Putin Vlad the Impaler, he then speaks passionately about the Tenth Amendment and throwing the poor to the mercy of the platoon of sadists onstage.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

thoughts? - https://www.facebook.com/stanley.steele.372/videos/793993664043730/

jeb wouldn't even be the worst bush presidency of my lifetime

an interesting poll idea

jeb's opinions are bad but he seems the most reasonable to me. cruz & christie etc have flown to the right to try and win the primary but jeb has mostly stuck with what he believes. kasich's centricity seems focused group to me.

Never forget: Bono is a friend.

http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/styles/ratio--3-2--770x513/public/jeb_0005_ap98012401879.jpg?itok=0Sqm5Pd8

Trump vote silver lining - could easily see him being the first President removed from Office. The rest of these clowns would be just as disastrous but probably fulfill their entire term.

I clicked on Jeb, no exclamation mark attached. If I had a vote and had to vote, that's who I'd vote for. I'll be rooting for Trump + chaos, although at this point, Trump winning is probably less chaotic for the party than other possible outcomes.

trump without a doubt. him running on the republican ticket does not scare me a bit. and even if by some miracle he were elected, i sort of doubt he'd govern anywhere close to how rightward he's currently campaigning

my fear with trump would be not that he would govern too far from the right but that he would forget to do something and like, we'd crack the debt ceiling or something

Trump for the lolz.

Trump would call up Rent-A-Rasputin and install one in the Lincoln Bedroom to help him govern.

I'm trying to figure out which one I despise the least and it's way harder than it should be. I think I'll go with Rubio and hope he inadvertently dehydrates himself into a four year coma.

i'd have to vote kasich here. I don't like his stance on reproductive rights at all but he's the most reasonable person on this ballot, except for , maybe, jeb or christie....but jeb is jeb and christie is probably a crook.

wkiw christie

i would be terrified of trump if america was a parliamentary democracy or if trump had his own paramilitary organization, but as neither of those things are true i am not super worried about him being elected.

none of these would compel me to vote for HRC.

you should move to a swing state so your threats to not vote dem actually mean something

swing this

I voted Jeb. Kasich is another boringly bad-but-not-that-bad candidate. I feel like any candidate has a slim margin of victory due to the chances of the opposing candidate dying or making a royal fuckup, so no Trump or Carson for the lulz.

The exerpt from Double Down does make Christie seem like a psychopath, but I understand that Mark Halperin is one of the dumbest reporters out there and probably fell for some insider politics bullshit.

Trump. He's a left of center democrat. He doesn't give a shit about building a wall, making a database for Muslims, or abortion. He's a great actor.

He also doesn't give a shit about you or me or the country or the rest of the world or the future, except as possible instruments for further self-glorification.

Ted Cruz would be the most fun snl impression, so him

wanna clarify i voted for trump when i posted up-thread and foresee him winning not only the iowa caucus but the presidential election

I can't recall Jeb! saying anything too batshit, feel like he'd be ok. These other guys have given me at least a couple o_O moments a piece.

terry schiavo episode's not batshit enough for you?

D'oh, like the general electorate I have short memory

Jeb!s typical brand of batshit is to blandly give the rich yet another round of tax cuts.

Of the possible GOP presidential scenarios this time 'round, having another Bush in the White House would probably induce the least amount of dread and panic in me. That's where we're at in 2016.

like someone said upthread, Jeb seems like such a pushover. His line at the last debate about missing Donald Trump because "he was like a little teddy bear to me" was just totally bizarre. And he's a Bush.

Well, yeah, but this is like deciding which incurable venereal disease you want to contract.

Jeb! == genital warts

Sometimes it seems to me that Jeb Rubio and Christie are seemingly the only ones aware that they're running for president of the USA as opposed to The Real World (Crazy Rich Old People Edition) /trenchant

I feel like if I click any of these I'm going to get an electric shock and a startling all-caps message that reads "SURPRISE! YOU PICKED THE ONE THAT'S SECRETLY WORSE THAN TRUMP!"

so Trump.

I can't even imagine what this election cycle must be like for people who are somewhat reasonable and identify as republicans. I do have some sympathy for those people. I'd like for them to be able to vote for a non-insane, and for Clinton to not just take the White House in a walk because she's running against a certifiable lunatic.

Those people are all about Rubio. They've been deep in prayer for a while now.

I have no good feelings for those people, lol

I haven't known as reasonable Republican since 1980

We have family friends that fall in that category, and it's always a little hard to hate family friends for their politics alone even if you know deep down that their politics represent a sheltered, blinkered, and/or willfully self-deceived worldview.

Alfred otm

those people are all gone/dead. Although I am v curious to hear what my right-leaning oldest uncle thinks.

xp

Even some of those I'm not always sure whether they're "reasonable" or just too graceful to say some of the more odious stuff they believe.

i don't feel bad for republicans bc this is the party they've basically been wanting for decades, congrats to them imo they finally achieved full moron

I guess I should say not republicans per se but people whose views are to the right of mine but not fueled by incoherent xenophobia. I'd like to think there's room for respectful disagreement and candidates who represent a variety of views and not just 'sorta left but not really' and 'we have to be physically restrained from smearing shit in our hair'.

most of the "reasonable" Republicans I know like Rand Paul, which is just like dude come on

The "reasonable" Republicans I know have been strangely silent this election cycle.

"Reasonable Republicans" in 2016 are college students who support gay marriage but think this couple has no right to unemployment benefits or that Social Security has a lot of "abuse."

The reasonable Republican choice is Hillary.

They're democrats now /trenchant encore

Lol xp

Alfred OTM

kasich because the NYT told me so.

the New York Times endorsements: when you just might want to vote for somebody who could almost be in the other party

btw it's worth noting that the Iowa republican caucus system is batshit crazy. they used to not caucus and had a straw poll, and then they switched to secret ballot that was conspiratorial because they sent delegates for who they wanted anyway and ignored the numbers (lol)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucuses#Republican_Party_process

the democrat process isn't anything near a "vote" in that you stand around in groups, and any "non-viable" groups either have to merge or wander off, and it's silly and contentious https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucuses#Democratic_Party_process

caucusing is bizarre, no doubt about it, some sort of pale imitation of Athenian democratic procedures or something

The Iowa Caucuses were infiltrated with "Dipshit gas" in 2008 and 2012. Therefore, our nation was stuck with President Obama for 8 years. Due to those 2 caucuses, our country has a 19 trillion dollar debt and the rest of the world thinks of our government is full of a bunch of dipshit democrats.

the existence of this gas would explain a great many things, i admit

If you smelt it you dealt it imo

uh hello they didn't caucus in 2012 for an incumbent, they just elected local party delegates

If caucuses are going to be these weird semi-choreographed things they should at least involve square dancing and vuvuzelas or something

we don't tell anyone outside the state and we hide them if it's a caucus with media present, but... we have vuvuzelas

i would move to the heartland if i could caucus and squaredance simultaneously

that could be another test really. at this point, requiring the candidates to walk and chew gum at the same time would consolidate the race considerably.

can't even imagine what this election cycle must be like for people who are somewhat reasonable and identify as republicans. I do have some sympathy for those people. I'd like for them to be able to vote for a non-insane, and for Clinton to not just take the White House in a walk because she's running against a certifiable lunatic.

― Chortles And Guffaws (Old Lunch), Monday, February 1, 2016 2:52 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Sorry CC

please, please let trump cite this poll at his next event

Great!

"I don't know, they tell me I'm winning all the polls, we're just winning winning winning...The Des Moines Register poll, we won that, ILX--I don't know even know ILX, but they tell me they're terrific people there--we won the ILX poll, and I even hear that Ted Cruz got almost nothing there, so who knows."

CLINTON 53% SANDERS 46%
TRUMP 33% CRUZ 32% RUBIO 13%

where are you getting this

that's with... 4% of votes in per CNN.

https://www.idpcaucuses.com/#/state

too close to call re Sanders and Clinton

watching a republican caucus and it's just a guy opening opening pieces of paper and reading the names written on them. excruciatingly boring television!

and MSNBC stayed on that dude for five minutes

he was kinda cute though

MSNBC has the most number of gay reporters and anchors on the air

where are you getting this

― Crazy Eddie & Jesus the Kid (Raymond Cummings), Monday, February 1, 2016 8:49 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

drudge

the paper opening on msnbc was amazing, i hope they cut back to it

i'm listening on the radio fwiw

OK now I'm watching a neurasthenic MSNBC reporter ambling around a basketball court isolating O'Malley supporters.

the caucus process is so fucked

"i'm holding out for o'malley"
"seems like a heavy lift right now?"
"...yeah"

-msnbc

OMIGOD irate college student said "fucked up" on TV.

oh my god get these kids OFF OF THE TV

"we apologize for that bit of french that snuck into our english language translation" LOL

Chris Matthews reduced to praising the photography inside hotel rooms ("It's history! It's cinema verite!")

^^haha really?

"ground game", love how hard MSNBC is going here

Marshall County, folks

it's interesting how Cruz coming out ahead gave Rubio a bump in the predictions markets. i hope rubes gets the nom, out of the three. seems extra guaranteed to lose, and I'm even more terrified of Cruz than trump

why do you figure rubio has less of a chance in the general than trump or cruz?

I would've picked Rubio as the only one of those three who could win a general

we still have new hampshire. come on trump!