Who's your money on?Follow

You'd be like three elections late.

If Florida doesn't go to Bush, that's just going to be embarrassing. Even more embarrassing than having to ask people to applaud.

This is the break McCain's been waiting for!

Yes. Are you looking for a sane one, or a cheap one?

Edited, Feb 17th 2016 2:30pm by Timelordwho

So the deer is extremely agile, unless he's faced with headlights.

Good enough for me! Sounds completely Presidential.

The rules in SC give a nice bonus to the guy who gets the most votes statewide, but that doesn't mean he sweeps all the delegates though. If we assume an uniform support for all the candidates in all 7 congressional delegates, you'd have a point. It's rarely likely that this is the case though. Um.... But even if he just picks up say 3 of the districts, and a majority of all votes in the state, that gives him 38 delegates out of 50.


I'd actually disagree with you (surprise!) on the idea that Trump's support is wide, but shallow. I'd argue it's deep, but narrow. He's got some pretty hard caps on his support (seems to be about 25-30% and has stayed in that range for the last several months). He's got very very high negatives among GOP voters. But what he does have is a nearly fanatical base (hence, deep). Those who support him are unlikely to move to anyone else, virtually no matter what he says or does, but that's still a relatively small percentage of the whole. The real problem is that the remaining 70-75% of the voters who are likely to shift their support from week to week are shifting that support around between 3-4 other candidates. Which leaves him with a plurality most of the time.

You are absolutely correct that the only way to stop him is for the voters to coalesce around a single other candidate. And that hasn't happened yet. It's honestly why I'm so irritated about the whole Chris Christie thing. Barring that, Rubio was looking at a strong 2nd in NH, a likely drop of Bush from the race, followed by a flood of endorsements, which would have propelled him to another strong 2nd (and possibly even first) in SC. Which would have likely resulted in Kasich and perhaps even Cruz dropping, and Rubio would run the tables from there. That one bit by Christie has prolonged the process, muddled the waters, and gives Trump a good shot at winning. At the very least, it pushes things back a month or two in terms of where the momentum goes, and puts that swing point dangerously late in the primary process.

Ok. I misunderstood how you were using the term. Yes, his numbers are relatively consistent nationwide, so I get where you're going with that. I meant "broad" as in "has a broad swath of likely voters who will support him", not "his support is consistent over a broad swath of the country". A candidate with broad appeal is one who can pick up a broad range of voters. Trumps support is relatively narrow in that regard. Hence my comment about his numbers capping at some point. Most GOP candidates (or Dem candidates for that matter), once they stand out from the pack, quickly garner high support numbers (60-80% in the later primaries is not uncommon).

Trump will never get those kinds of numbers because his support is only among a relatively narrow range of voters. Any of the others, if they were the only one standing against Trump, would be getting the remaining 70% or so of primary voters. That's what I meant by "broad vs narrow".

"Doesn't get his thesaurus from anywhere, etc"

Looks like the bottom line is: All of the potential GOP nominees for president are terrible-- with nil chance of winning no matter who is chosen.

They have never been more at each other's throats, and not without very good reason. It's basically a repeat of the last two election years-- only with all the viable GOP candidates completely removed. This will be the first time Democrats enjoy back-to-back(person-wise, not just term) control of the White House in modern history-- and quite possibly the last election year anyone takes the GOP seriously at all.

I try to imagine what it might be like with the end of the two-party dominated system. Future elections could end up just being battles between moderate and more extreme Democrats, with Republicans pretending to run with no hope of winning in very much the same way so-called "third party" candidates do today.

He could have beaten Obama, too, if he'd run against him. I know because he said so.

With a shovel, perhaps. That would be better than these stupid debates.

Um... Have you looked at the Democrat field? The entire reason the GOP field is still so wide and raucous is because candidates (and voters) feel that pretty much anyone could win against what the Dems are fielding, so folks who'd normally drop out are sticking in, and voters are more willing to take a risk on outside candidates because they've also got a good shot. This election cycle is a pretty interesting study in election year psychology both by candidates and voters. But it's pretty much all being lead by the Dems deciding to essentially clear the field for Clinton. Everything we're seeing is a response to that.



I totally would not count those chickens just yet. Again, the polling is interesting, and not so great for Dem prospects. Sanders does well against most of the GOP field (except Rubio), but as I've pointed out in previous threads, Sanders is still somewhat of an unknown amongst many general election voters just yet. And he's likely to lose against Clinton. Clinton is a well known entity, and she looses to nearly the entire GOP field. Heck. Kasich beats her. Badly (although, I'd toss the same "relatively unknown" factor at him that I throw at Sanders). Rubio beats her badly. Cruz beats her, but not by much. The only one out of the emerging "big three" who loses to Clinton is Trump. And out of the rest of the field (and by only 2 points) is Bush. Heck. Carson beats Clinton.

Yeah, yeah, early head to head "if the election were held today" polls aren't very accurate at this phase of the process, but still. I'm not sure how anyone looks at the Dem field and is super excited about the outcome this November. It's, at best, a toss up. And frankly, there are a ton of other factors that are outside this sort of polling. If Trump loses the nomination and runs third party out of spite, what does this do? What if Sanders does the same on the other side (remember, he's technically an Independent anyway). What if Bloomberg jumps in for some reason? Tons of variables could come into play here. Heck. What if Clinton is indicted?



That's not the way it works though. And frankly, is complete wishful thinking. Most of the "outlier" support for Trump is coming from folks who don't normally get too involved in the primary process (and perhaps not even much in the general). Those voters staying home if Trump isn't nominated isn't nearly as much of a problem for the GOP going forward (especially if Rubio, or even maybe Cruz is nominated, since that will almost certainly bump the Latino vote for the GOP) as Sanders loosing the nomination may present for Democrats.

The Democratic party is kinda like the tobacco industry. They tend to lose supporters as they age. The old adage that people are liberal when they are young, but tend to turn conservative as they get older is true. The point being that for the Democrats to remain competitive they absolutely require a new fresh crop of young idealistic voters to overwhelmingly join their side, to offset the steady losses as people grow up, gets jobs, start families, and migrate to the GOP. They tend to use very emotion laden arguments to grab these voters before they are educated enough about the world around them to make better and more logical choices. But that can backfire, since these same young people, if charged up emotionally for Sanders and against Clinton (as appears to be happening), are less likely to shrug that off and support Clinton in the general if he loses the nomination, than older more mature voters might do on the GOP side if their preferred candidate doesn't win the nomination.

This election cycle could also very well short circuit a whole crop of young voters and turn them off to the establishment Democratic party. Which might have even larger ramifications down the line than just this election. Hard to predict exactly what will happen here, but it will almost certainly cause more negatives for the Dems than for the GOP. Trump supporters will go back to whatever they were doing before. That's either not participating at all (and grousing about how neither party really represents them), or going back to supporting whatever GOP candidate is the closest to their positions, or whichever one wins the nomination (cause they're still better than the Dems in their mind). Either way, the net effect in terms of GOP support in this election compared to past elections isn't likely to be significant (against, unless Trump does a third party run). For the Dems? Either candidate winning the nomination could result in a loss of support relative to previous election years. Young voters if Clinton wins, and blue collar voters if Sanders wins.

I'd not be so optimistic about the Dem's chances if I were you.

It's adorable you think you had an argument. But sure, "you'll" let "me" off the hook.