I will keep doing, but not worth it! The 2016 Presidential Primary Voting Thread

Trump certainly has a ceiling, but i would surmise it's much higher than Palin's.

also Republicans hate Hillary, sure, but I also think deep in their black hearts they know they aren't going to hate her as president nearly as much as they hated Obama. and maybe not as much as they'd hate Trump. i suspect they're kinda willing to let this election slide and hope for a better candidate in four years (or eight.)

the thing about GWB was that he seemed so harmless and pitiable in a way that made you like him (unlike Jeb! where you just wanted someone to put him down.) And he did carry himself in a way that was not entirely horrible.

are you kidding

Bush was a smug, cheap asswipe whom no amount of Trumps and Palins will improve.

Many Republicans who fought the impeachment wars have said they don't find Bubba as noxious anymore. Obama will look like Lincoln when President Warren runs for her second term.

are you kidding

Will gets snippy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-wrecks-the-gop-by-driving-the-campaign-conversation/2016/02/21/b4b6c5b2-d8d4-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html

Putin's a buffoon in a very similar way, and I think that's part of Trump's appeal, as a guy who can be just as fiercely buffoonish.

hey i didn't like GWB at all. i'm just looking at it from a certain perspective and from what other people tell me. I also think, tbf, that ensuing republican candidates both failed and successful have made people like him more, retrospectively.

tbf Putin has actually had people murdered

xp

i've had other people tell me they "like" GWB, in a "get a beer with him" sense. idk.

I mean Putin is def cartoonish and a hyper-media-driven-Alphamale but he also knows where the bodies are buried. Trump is just a gasbag.

xp

Bush had had people murdered and smirked and giggled about it.

oh for sure. Obama (who passed their Romneycare and never really raised taxes) will be the "sensible moderate" they pine for in 20 years.

the Bubba love when he was stumping in 2012 from the GOP was hilarious. like, y'all remember he still killed Vince Foster or whatever, right?

see also MLK, Kennedy

xxxposts

that all the GOP undecideds have broken heavily for anyone but trump seems to me solid evidence that he has a ceiling and his nomination would be disastrous for the gop

the markets like rubio more and more each day fwiw, which would certainly make for a less frightening, more amusing election

Donald Trump has been working in the construction industry in New York for 40 years. I would not be surprised at all to find out that he's had people murdered. Have none of you ever watched Law & Order?

the big three GOP candidates have such huge weaknesses. Cruz and Trump are maybe the ones who seem "strongest" because their bases are pretty rabid, but that's as far as they'd go imo. Rubio would appeal more widely but he's more a GOP Dukakis than a GOP Obama at this point.

I'll say it again: Rubio's a neocon wannabe with an imbecile's mien and a toddler's stammer

Dr. C. is right - it's not enough to have Alabamian yahoos in more of a froth than they already were. How does Trump flip EVs in safely blue states, including New York? He does not.

Telling Gallup you supported the sitting president in late 2001 is not the same as going into a booth and voting for a loony-ass wild-card because you think he'll be stronger in response to terror.

I don't recall the Paris attacks of Friday the 13th really budging USian politics at all (not that this is dispositive, it's just that it's the data point we have). The Fort Hood, San Bernardino, and Navy Yard shootings were spun as terror on our own shores, but I don't see that they changed anyone's mind about whom to vote for. They were red shirts waved by persons who were already primed for Trumpian politics.

yeah trump imagines himself berlusconi, not putin. i mean they're all politicians that trade on alpha-male tropes, no question, but that genuinely ice-cold KGB secret-keeper quality is really not available to trump.

fwiw, trump's numbers did go up after paris and san bernardino, but it was hard to read because they overlapped the month-long period of ben carson finishing himself off with all the pyramid stuff and related stories revealing that he was a fringey oddball, not the plainspoken commonsense savior of the party. trump got the people who gave up carson, and that's when he went up from 25% to 35%. where he's stayed basically ever since save for a big trough right after iowa.

ooh Berlusconi yeah, def a better European parallel

I like the Andrew Jackson comparison

Jackson actually fought in wars and shit!

Trump is a spoiled brat

Were any of these people ever as inconsistent and irresponsible in their public statements as trump?

Trump is just a salesperson who will smirk and tap dance and overpromise to close the sale, and let the buyer's remorse sink in later.

Were any of these people ever as inconsistent and irresponsible in their public statements as trump?

― Treeship, Monday, February 22, 2016 1

did you ever read Jackson's Twitter feed? Vile stuff.

@AndrewJackson

My enemies say Trail of Tears. By the Eternal, I'll make a Trail of Queers yet!

10:06 AM - 22 Feb 1831

good old reasonable, moderate Kasich:

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/kasich-women-left-their-kitchens-me-when-i-first-ran-n523636

This is just nuts. Jeez, oh man.

Donald Trump has been working in the construction industry in New York for 40 years.

That's wars-and-shit right there!

Remember the good old days when "binders full of women" passed for a howler?

I think everyone itt is seriously underestimating Trump's appeal in the general. There are a ton of moderates and liberals who will vote for him but never admit it. Hillary vs. Trump is 50-50. Get ready!

He could win New York.

no

Schumer and Hilz have that state sewn up

There are definitely oddballs here and there who would vote for Trump for weird reasons, and there definitely are not enough of them to put Trump at 50-50 vs Hillary.

It'll be a lot closer than people think. And it'll be the best election of our lifetimes. No stone left unturned. We'll find out about Bill's current mistresses, Hillary's affair with Huma Abedin, Trump's mob ties, who knows what else... I can't wait!

obama won ny by 28 points in 2012 (a larger margin than in 2008)

no win in NY, and not 50-50, but i agree that it will be closer than people think.

it will be closer than people think

It all depends on how close people think it will be. I think Trump is capable of losing by 47% to 53% in the general election, if only because US politics have gone largely insane, but in terms of electoral college votes that would still be a rout.

^that's fair

Berlusconi

Amazed we have not gotten a Trump "bunga bunga" tale yet, but I'm sure we will. Probably boost this numbers, too.

‏@BretEastonEllis
Just back from a dinner in West Hollywood: shocked the majority of the table was voting for Trump but they would never admit it publicly.

Trump will cause real defections/voter turnout problems for the GOP in the general election. Dems shouldn't take this for granted, they should aggressively exploit fears about Trump and maximize Dem gains, particularly in state legislatures wherever possible.

http://theresurgent.com/i-will-not-vote-for-donald-trump-ever/

Problem is Hillary will have turnout problems of her own

^^ This is a decent reason to vote for Sanders. Much higher positives and much lower negatives.

In the fall we'll be looking back on statements like "we're sick and tired of your damn emails, Madam Secretary" as relics of a bygone era

^^ This is a decent reason to vote for Sanders. Much higher positives and much lower negatives.

― schwantz, Monday, February 22, 2016 2:29 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think there is any reason to believe sanders would have a better chance beating trump (or other republicans) than clinton

To be entirely fair, one imagines sanders's negatives going up a LOT if he were up against a candidate determined to destroy him on the basis of his progressivism rather than trying to claim that ground for themselves (in compromised "pragmatic" form, but still). I'm not calling that scenario for Trump, but it has to be allowed that for millions of Americans, their effective introduction to Bernie might be a blanket of superPAC-funded ads decrying his tax-and-spend liberal radicalism, his putative palling around with 60s terrorists, and "class warfare" and whatever else.