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

@AP
BREAKING: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid endorses Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

@ggreenwald
I hope this will put an end to people unfairly claiming she's the Establishment Candidate.

xp: Oh I know, I'm just saying that as an outsider, recognizing full well that I am not the target audience, I would think these people were much less crazy if their rhetoric was framed as "Rubio represents our best chance to win" rather than "Rubio is likely to win" given that Rubio is, well... Rubio.

That NRO post reads like an essay from a high school junior.

afaik cruz still has not been endorsed by a single one of his colleagues in the Senate. he's being frozen out for the simple reason that everyone hates him. to god be the glory.

yeah everyone hates him but everyone hated him a month ago too. even the media isn't giving him benefit of the doubt anymore, it's just like, objectively everyone hates him, he's not gonna win, get out of here dude.

ha yeah the chatter all takes it for granted that the "establishment" will never except Cruz, and he can't beat Trump, ergo his campaign is dead

he also killed a lot of people in northern california in the late 60s and early 70s

via Greenwald, a Trump-hatin' conservative warns the Dems that he could beat them

At this point it’s possible that Trump will secure the Republican nomination in three weeks. After Florida and Ohio vote, Trump will turn his attention to the general election. He’ll be free to hone his message and adapt to the new environment. His most likely opponent, however, may still be embroiled in a contested primary. Fueled by small dollar contributions, Bernie Sanders is unlikely to leave the Democratic race any time soon. So Hillary will be running against both Bernie and Trump. And Trump will have time to figure out which lines against her work and which do not. He will use his earned media to define Clinton as weak on immigration, trade, foreign policy, and fitness for office. If past is prologue, Trump’s attacks will be loud, nasty, over the top. And they’ll work.

http://freebeacon.com/blog/7-reasons-democrats-should-be-terrified-of-donald-trump/

meh

If Trump were to win I might have to give up the internet in the interest of my mental health.

An amusement in this -- I think your second paragraph undercuts your first:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/donald-trump-running-mate-pick-opinion-219692

“My first job was with Jesse Helms,” said Juleanna Glover, presenting her conservative credentials. “I lived with Phyllis Schlafly. I worked for Dan Quayle, George W. Bush, Bill Kristol, Steve Forbes, Rudy Giuliani, Dick Cheney and spent half my career with John Ashcroft.”

And her views on Trump?

“He is inherently dangerous to the national interest,” she said. “Trump as the nominee is destructive, and anyone who would seriously consider being his vice president is an accomplice to that destruction.”

cruz shut down the fucking government to prove a pointless point. theres no way he's getting out of the race to help anyone.

Clinton’s Lead Is Surmountable - it is super early and i wouldn't put much stock in national polling this early

Trump’s Positions are Popular - they are not, really

Trump Will Have Months to Find and Occupy the Political Center - sure i guess

Hillary Clinton is a Terrible Presidential Candidate - sure but so is trump

The Country Wants Change - doesn't mean they want trump

Michael Bloomberg’s Entry into the Race Would Help Trump - there are no indications that he will actually enter this race

Global Chaos Helps Trump - there is not really evidence of this, esp in a matchup w/ a former secretary of state?

(from that http://freebeacon.com/blog/7-reasons-democrats-should-be-terrified-of-donald-trump/ list btw)

i'm not believing most of that either, but it's always a good idea to expect incompetence/tonedeafness from a Hil campaign

Michael Bloomberg’s Entry into the Race Would Help Trump - there are no indications that he will actually enter this race

I keep wondering who these theoretical masses are who would care that Bloomberg is running for president. Dude's less interesting than Perot was even when he was taking a nap.

pt. 4 is especially contestable! we saw those charts yesterday that HRC's negatives are pretty bad for a presidential candidate, but trump's are waaaay worse

right

his negatives don't matter. he's beating Kasich in Ohio, where K's favorability rating is something like 70 points higher than Trump.

why is this happening

Apologies for a RedState link but: http://www.redstate.com/dan_mclaughlin/2015/12/10/one-statistic-destroys-john-kasichs-presidential-campaign/

xpost It's the electoral version of suicide by cop imo.

trump will win the election, form a one world goverment, move the capital to jerusalem, and destroy to an extraordinary degree / and prosper and perform his will; / he will destroy mighty men and the holy people / and through his shrewdness / he will cause deceit to succeed by his influence / and he will magnify himself in his heart / and he will destroy many while they are at ease / he will even oppose the prince of princes, he will rule for 3 and a half years as a messianic figure, then he will claim to be god. he will defile temples to express his satanic contempt. lo, he will wage war against god, he will set out in a great rage to destroy and annihilate many. he will pitch his royal tents between the seas at the beautiful holy mountain. but he will be judged: ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him / the judgement was set. "I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away; yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time."

lol mordy thats awesome

ITS IN REVELATIONS PEOPLE

http://i.imgur.com/6VL6GFp.png

While it’s undoubtedly true that racism and ethno-nationalism are significant factors in Trump’s appeal, also quite significant is a pervasive, long-standing contempt for the political establishment, combined with enduring rage at Wall Street and corporate America which – along with the bipartisan agenda of globalization and free trade – has spawned intense economic suffering and deprivation among a huge number of Americans. (An) article by the conservative writer Michael Brendan Dougherty is the best I’ve read explaining the sustained success of Trump’s candidacy, and it very convincingly documents those factors: “There are a number of Americans who are losers from a process of economic globalization that enriches a transnational global elite.”

In this type of climate, why would anyone assume that a candidate who is the very embodiment of Globalist Establishment Power (see her new, shiny endorsement from Tony Blair), who is virtually drowning both personally and politically in Wall Street cash, has “electability” in her favor? Maybe one can find reasons to support a candidate like that. But in this environment, “electability” is most certainly not one of them. Has anyone made a convincing case why someone with those attributes would be a strong candidate in 2016?

Despite this mountain of data, the pundit consensus – which has been wrong about essentially everything – is that Hillary Clinton is electable and Bernie Sanders is not. There’s virtually no data to support this assertion. All of the relevant data compels the opposite conclusion....

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/24/with-trump-looming-should-dems-take-a-huge-electability-gamble-by-nominating-hillary-clinton/

I dont think there's enough geopolitical anarchists out there to elect trump president. the primaries have been little echo chambers of rage for the gop.

re: why is this happening, Taibbi is getting close to the answer

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-america-made-donald-trump-unstoppable-20160224

a dude at Lawyers, Guns & Money likes to say "no one cares about federalism" and Trump is showing that that is actually just a corollary to the more fundamental axiom "no one cares about conservatism"

Cheryl Donlon says she heard the tariff message loud and clear and she's fine with it, despite the fact that it clashes with traditional conservatism.

"We need someone who is just going to look at what's best for us," she says.

I mention that Trump's plan is virtually identical to Dick Gephardt's idea from way back in the 1988 Democratic presidential race, to fight the Korean Hyundai import wave with retaliatory tariffs.

Donlon says she didn't like that idea then.

Why not?

"I didn't like him," she says.

After Ventura was elected in MN, I will never again doubt the strength of the "hur hur" vote. I knew a few people who admitted to voting for him, and none really had an idea what his platform was, they all just voted so that they could later say "Hur hur, I voted for the pro wrestler".

See also: Ahnuld out here.

whoops! somehow missed that the Taibbi was posted already

i have a kind of theory i don't think i've seen elsewhere that the rank-and-file republican voters are ready to shift to the left on a number of issues (evangelicals/dreher types giving up on waging a successful culture war, working class reps looking for a stronger safety net and more govt involvement in their lives, tired of neoconservative botched foreign policy, etc) but they're so closely identified w/ the republican party that they can't just switch parties - the identification is more important than the actual policies (which we know when polled outside the context of a particular party some v left-wing policies are actually v popular). so trump is kind of a trojan horse for this shift - his welfare nativism resonates enough w the republican party enough that lifelong self-identifying republicans can sign onto. idk i haven't thought this through v carefully and i can see some immediate issues w/ this theory but it accounts for his popularity and maybe also can generate a sense of optimism about forming some sort of consensus in the future around left-wing economic policy.

Trump support is a little different than voting for Grandpa Munster for governor (which I have done). xxxp

not really

the modern republicanism as presently constituted is less a political philosphy than an amorphous blob of dude energy

@BillKristol
Debate advice from a friend!
"After some Trump rant Rubio walks over and punches him in the face...puncturing his aura as successful bully."

tbf, i'd like to punch bill kristol in the face

honestly rubio seems like such a mark ass buster than i might take the old man in a fair one

See also: Ahnuld out here.

I don't think this is comparable really - the unprecedented recall of Davis, his canny understanding of the electorate/courting necessary Dem votes make the situation quite different.

xps to Mordy - I'm on board with that theory generally tbh

his welfare nativism

Trump's not really into welfare afaict. He may be into protectionist tariffs and a more progressive tax rate, but he isn't offering a safety net to the poor, or free college, or free healthcare

xp

http://www.ibtimes.com/reckoning-very-wrong-media-after-nevada-donald-trump-no-longer-joke-2321947

i think Mordy has a good point. that's certainly a reasonable and somewhat hopeful (i guess) take on Trump's popularity.

but i also think they just really really like how he gets to say and do whatever the fuck he wants and suffers zero consequences. ESPECIALLY with the loud and proud racism/ bigotry. like, that's just the coolest. how he can do that. i want to do that and get a pat on the back. i want to do that and not be fired from work or a social pariah. this is America and Trump is going to Make it Great Again so i can be really loud and racist and suffer zero consequences.

he has come out explicitly for protecting social security and universal healthcare xxp

conservatives, hollow paeans to libertarian individualism notwithstanding, are fundamentally authoritarians, and Trump has made every single primary opponent, and basically the entire leadership of his party look just insanely weak, slapped them around constantly with no repercussions or effective pushback (see also Josh Marshall's "bitch-slap theory" of politics).

it's like a ruthless new gangster comes to town and suddenly starts embarrassing and picking off all the old fat lazy mob bosses, and their henchmen, who can tell which way the wind is blowing, start defecting to him. OK I think I'm just describing the plot of The Dark Knight at this point but it's kind of what this whole process has reminded me of.

'salt of the earth' americans worship trophy-wifed man who inherited a fortune, news at 11

he has come out explicitly for protecting social security and universal healthcare xxp

this is basically the status quo. also not welfare.

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/seven-hillary-clintons-biggest-accomplishments/

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-set-to-blow-up-gop-orthodoxy-again/article/2571075

Trump has been sending signals that his tax proposal, which he says will be "comprehensive," will include higher rates for some of the richest Americans, a position generally at odds with Republican orthodoxy. "I want to see lower taxes," Trump said at an appearance in Norwood, Mass., on Friday night. "But on some people, they're not doing their fair share."

In particular, Trump has said he will go after "carried interest," which refers to the practice of hedge fund managers who make hundreds of millions of dollars a year paying a lower tax rate than Americans who earn ordinary wages. "I would take carried interest out, and I would let people making hundreds of millions of dollars a year pay some tax, because right now they are paying very little tax and I think it's outrageous," Trump told Bloomberg Politics last week. "I want to lower taxes for the middle class."

you know what welfare is, right

it's not fiddling with the tax code