The good news is that the American Republican Party, a clown car if there ever was one, is on its way to defeat in next year’s Presidential election. The CNN news feed sent me this when I awoke:
More than any other Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump has won his party’s trust on top issues and now stands as the clear leader in the race for the Republican nomination. A new CNN/ORC poll finds Trump with the support of 24% of Republican registered voters. His nearest competitor, Jeb Bush, stands 11 points behind at 13%. Just behind Bush, Ben Carson has 9%, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker 8%, Rand Paul 6%, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and John Kasich all land at 5%, with Mike Huckabee rounding out the top 10 at 4%.
Trump is the biggest gainer in the poll, up 6 points since July according to the first nationwide CNN/ORC poll since the top candidates debated in Cleveland on August 6. Carson gained 5 points and Fiorina 4 points. Trump has also boosted his favorability numbers among Republicans: 58% have a favorable view of Trump now; that figure stood at 50% in the July survey.
Seriously, those Republicans who are supporting Trump are useful idiots, because if Trump gets the GOP nomination (something I can’t believe will really happen, even in this benighted land), the Democrats will win. Who in all seriousness thinks that Donald “Deport All Illegal Aliens” Trump would be a credible president? But, of course, the U.S. elected G. W. Bush. And creationist Ben Carson? Seriously, a creationist President? Someone who believes the Earth is 10,000 years old is simply not qualified to run the country.
Trump is, of course, Mr. Clown in this Doonesbury strip from August 2:
…& Biden is bidin’ his time but will come in & run…?
Seriously though – Trump? Now I come to think of it though, there are not many lands that do not have clowns in power – dangerous clowns, eroding democracy. Look at Zuma in South Africa for example.
I am getting coulrophobic.
In the words of Charlie Mingus, don’t fear the clown: the clown’s afraid, too.
Silvio Berlusconi in Italy.
Oh gawd Berlusconi! Even 2nd generation Italians in Canada still shake their heads in disbelief.
Trump is awesome, from a certain point of view.
I agree. At worst, even if he gets in, he’ll be firing cabinet members every two minutes. Nobody will ever get anything done.
That might be an improvement on anything that lot might actually do… 🙁
cr
I want to get him in a wind tunnel.
That will nullify the results of all the “Trump your cat” contests.
IMO, Trump is trolling.
And he is doing a magnificent job.
He appeals to the low information voters and the bigots, because he “speaks his mind”. Meanwhile, he is pissing off the Republican leaders, because he is not utilizing racist/sexist dogwhistles and is instead ” speaking truth to power”
If Trump really is a troll, he’s the supreme grand master of trolling.
Trump has always been a troll. He was a professional troll before we knew what trolling was.
Trump really did invite the Clintons to his 2005 wedding:
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/jul/21/carlos-curbelo/clintons-really-did-attend-donald-trumps-2005-wedd/
I’m now virtually convinced that he is indeed a troll. There’s a large dose of megalomania mixed in, but he’s certainly trolling. Even Trump has to know that there’s no way any of the policies he outlined while kicking off his campaign could possibly come to fruition. He saw an opportunity to drive the Republican clown car and he took it, first and foremost to put himself at the center of attention.
Exactly. I think Trump views himself as a brand and he’s found the perfect venue for promoting that brand. In years to come there will be next to no one alive who hasn’t heard of him. He’s a marketers dream.
Seems to me, as an outsider, that the guy’s not really interested in politics anyway. Similar to Rupert Murdoch, whose papers switch political position from left to right and back again depending on who looks like winning.
Who is allowed to vote in those primaries?
It varies by jurisdiction. In some areas everyone can vote in any primary. More commonly you have to have registered (voter registration) as a republican, democrat or independent to vote in those respective primaries.
Just to clarify what darelle said, in the states where anyone can vote in any primary (without regard to what party you’re registered with), you typically can still only vote in one. So you can vote in the GOP primary, or the Dem primary, but not both.
According to Wikipedia, 17 states have open primaries as described by darelle and I above, plus California has a slightly different open primary system. My very rough (again, Wikipedia-based) calculation of population numbers says states with open primaries (including CA) cover about 130 million of our population.
Thanks, both you and Darrelle. Voter registration sounds very weird to my ears. I think it’s very important that the government doesn’t know what I’m voting. Who knows what the consequences might be of a ‘wrong’ vote…
The ballots are still secret. Well, the in-person ones are, at least…much of the country is moving to mail-in ballots, and those’re trivial to identify, but that’s another story.
The primary elections are official functions of the various political parties, not the government. The government runs the elections as a service to the parties. In practice, the Republicans and Democrats have a death grip on power and have rigged the primary process such that it’s extremely difficult for anybody not a Republican nor Democrat to even get on the primary ballot in the first place, and all but impossible for such a candidate to be competitive with the R and D candidates.
But, all that aside…part of the voter registration process includes a declaration of party affiliation. You can typically change your affiliation at the drop of an hat, though there might be some restrictions generally associated with the deadline for registration before an election.
In general elections (as well as non-partisan elections, such as for some municipalities and school boards and the like), everybody in the jurisdiction gets the same ballot. But for primary elections, each party is largely responsible for who appears on the party’s ballot, and the voter can only have one party’s ballot to mark. Which party’s ballot you get is recorded in open primary jurisdictions (and sometimes automatically gets you re-registered as a member of that party) and restricted to only your declared party for closed primary jurisdictions.
One more thing to note…the general election ballot that includes the Presidency also typically includes, I shit you not, scores if not hundreds of things for people to vote on. Everywhere you’ve got two or three Federal races: President, House of Representatives, and (for two out of every three election cycles) Senate. You often get a similar set of state races — governor and state legislators. Most places, you’ve also got county and city races as well…and that can include dozens of offices literally (no joke!) all the way down to dog catcher. Here in Arizona is typical…in addition to all that, you’ve also typically got at least a dozen or more ballot measures of varying levels of importance, from bond authorizations for school construction to marriage rights. And then there’re all the judges…at least fifty or so judges in office who must get 50%+1 to remain in office.
In a truly representative democracy, you wouldn’t have four oversized sheets of ballots to wade through on election day; you’d have just a small handful of representatives to pick from to represent you, and it’d be their job to represent the interests of the community and, for example, impeach misbehaving judges. But the American system comes with a “benefit” to the political class…there’s no way to even pretend to hand-count ballots such as ours, so we have no choice but to computerize the ballot counting process. And, as a result, what the people mark on the paper makes damned little difference; all that matters is what the vote tallying machines report to the press.
…sorry for the rant….
b&
That is only true because media has led Americans to expect results a few minutes after the polls close. There is no actual rush, and results could easily be announced a day or so after the election. There is absolutely no reason that paper ballots could not be hand counted. (At the very least, there is no reason that people could not fill out paper ballots that would be automatically scanned, with their physical ballot retained for auditing purposes.)
First, at least in Maricopa County (and this really does vary county-by-county), we have optical scan machines that count paper ballots (connect the suitable line with a special pen) on site. Data cartridges are rushed to a receiving site immediately at the end of the election; the cartridges are read at the receiving site and electronically transmitted to the country recorder’s office; and the recorder’s office reports the results. The ballots go in black canvas bags sealed with a labeled zip-tie; the bags make their way to the same receiving site later in the evening and get loaded in rented moving vans; and the vans take the canvas bags to a warehouse where it takes a court order to go anywhere near them. After so many years, the ballots get shredded and recycled, with 99 44/100% of them never looked at by anybody other than the voter and the machine that counts them.
As for the practicality of hand-counting…I wasn’t joking when I wrote that you might have an hundred things to vote for on our ballots here — fifty or so judges to approve, a couple dozen ballot measures to decide on, and a couple dozen political offices. There’s simply no way to hand-tabulate anything like that. Even in the basically-never-happens circumstances where a by-hand recount is ordered by the courts, it’s just for one specific contested race, and that alone is a massive and expensive undertaking. At least, given the budgets the elections departments are given for the task.
Democracy is expensive, and this is the land where Walmart’s everyday low prices set the standard for pretty much everything that counts.
b&
That’s a long and interesting piece of information. I knew democracy was a major thing in the USA, but I didn’t quite know how big. Seems like the USA is stuck in a permanent election campaign. But it does keep oligarchy at bay (in principle at least). Not a single government office in the Netherlands is up for election. Usually, it’s the legislative branch that appoints government officals. Consequently, almost all top government officials are people who made a career in the party that happens to be in power.
That’s somewhat true of the Presidency and the House races; candidates for those offices will be in campaign mode for ~2 years before the election date – which for the House means they are permanently campaigning. Its not as true of the Senate or races for more local government positions. The Senate because 6 years is a long time, and local government because those candidates just don’t have the money to mount even multi-month campaigns, let alone multi-year ones. For local campaigns, you usually see fliers start to go up a month or two before the election, and TV ads a couple of weeks before at most.
Hmmm I think the ballots I’ve seen have averaged about 10-15 things. Typically 4-8 races plus 2-5 bond or local law measures. I’ve never had to wade through 50 things.
While I’m glad I haven’t encountered the problem you lay out Ben, I do wish I hadn’t moved out of CA before the 2003 recall election. 135 candidates for governor, what madness! But still something I would’ve liked to have said I was a part of. 🙂
135 candidates for a single office is a bit crazy, yes, but it’d be very easy to hand-count. Simplest would be a binary tree. The first person just has to see if the candidate voted for is in the top half of the list or the bottom, and hands the ballot to the person on the left in the first case and the right in the second case. Those two people do the same, only they’re now just looking at their respective halves. Set up eight people in that type of pyramid and the ones at the end just have to sort the ballots into eight piles (with one person having nine piles). The final audit is a quick check to make sure each pile has only the proper candidate in the pile, and the final tally is simply the number of ballots in each pile.
The flip version, of two choices for each of 135 different offices / propositions / whatever…is far beyond human capability to manually deal with…and it’s that insanity that describes our elections….
b&
In case Ben’s post wasn’t clear, the government does not (in theory) know how you vote, because registration in a political party does not legally obligate you to vote for your party in the general election. You can be a registered Democrat and walk into the voting booth and vote for the Republican. Or the independent. Or write in your own a candidate. Or just not vote at all (yes some people do that: they go to vote on one race and don’t vote on the other races on the ballot. Though typically everyone wants to vote for President and its the more local races that get ignored).
For a Dem voting in a Rep primary, what would a good strategy be? You could vote for a weak candidate to encourage nomination of a looser. You could vote for Donald in hopes that his clown act will doom him on the national stage. You could vote for the best qualified/liberal Rep candidate just in case Dems do not prevail.
You should always vote your conscience, and never vote against your best interests. The only good time to cross party lines is to support a candidate whom you genuinely want to see take office. If you’re voting in another party’s primary because your own party isn’t on the ballot or doesn’t have a realistic chance of success, you should still vote for the candidate you most want to see take office, if any.
Voting for a bad candidate because you think it’ll improve your favorite candidate’s chances of victory to run against a weak opponent is a bad idea. Enough people do that and the weak opponent wins. Somewhat fewer people do that and the weak opponent still gets a really powerful bully pulpit to give legitimacy to the idiocy. Plus, in a truly functioning democracy, you should have truly strong candidates from all quarters; that way the election is about ideas, not personalities — plus it gives the winner the chance to benefit from the wisdom of the losers.
…besides, if you’re busy supporting the most idiotic clown for the other side, chances are good the other side is busy supporting the most idiotic clown for your own side, guaranteeing that, whichever side wins, the winner will be the most idiotic clown.
b&
Very good points. I’ve never felt compelled to vote Rep for national candidates – although the more local you go, the party affiliation becomes less significant and the character issue comes to the fore.
Yes. I’ve actively supported (time and money) a local Republican candidate, but never voted Republican at the national level.
b&
Sing it, brother! It’s why I keep voting Green even though I know Canada’s shitty first past the post leaves little hope of them getting it….however, if everyone voted their conscience, perhaps they’d have a real chance of getting in.
Not only that…if those who would nominally support a small party are guaranteed to support a big party instead, the big party not only has no incentive to even pay lip service to the interests of the small party, it’s against their interests to support electoral reforms that would give the small parties a fighting chance.
It’ll only be when people vote their conscience that big-party candidates will start losing, and it’s those losses that’ll provide the incentive for electoral reform and for trying to win back votes from the small parties.
b&
If there is any credible risk that your candidate could lose their primary, I think the overall best strategy is to forget voting in the opponent’s primary altogether. Just vote in yours, for the candidate you want to win. ‘Spoiling’ might sound fun but if too many do it, you’re not even going to get your candidate into the general election. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, IOW.
However, if we assume for sake of argument that you are very confident your ideal candidate will make the cut, so that you are comfortable using your primary vote on the other party’s primary, then I would still vote for most qualified. See my comment in response to #6 for my reasoning. But that’s just me; I certainly get the idea of casting a ‘spoiling’ vote for someone who you don’t think will win. I just don’t think its a great idea when it comes to the Presidency.
Vote for Trump. Don’t turn this election into another Clinton vs Bush. Sanders vs Trump would be best.
I am finding that I am liking Sanders more as I like less of Hillary. But Sanders is identifiable as a democratic socialist and I worry how that will be perceived to the swing voters. The average Joe/Josephine who could vote either way will be thinking: vote for the right wing-nut republican or vote socialist?
Sanders doesn’t have a chance nationally. Though I would vote for him in a heartbeat if he were the Dem candidate.
Elizabeth Warren would be a great choice.
I’m enjoying watching the GOP clown-car (as some one above so nicely put it). I don’t think any of them has a chance. The way the GOP has gone in recent years, the Ven Diagram of candidates electable in the GOP primary system, and the candidates electable as US president in the general election has no intersection. Which makes me very happy.
McCain 2008 and Romney 2012 showed that they can no longer win nationally by appealing to older white males. I don’t think the lesson has sunk in yet.
I prefer Saunders over Hillary as well. Hillary is a hawk and I think that’s dangerous. Saunders is smart and plain speaking and the world needs more of that.
I love Sanders, but remember the Nader effect.
Any republican who can reach the lever without retching.
Primates?
Primarily, I presume.
b&
Be careful what you ask for…there was another candidate, also charismatic and xenophobic and unabashedly pro-business as well as an unelectable joke…who went on to win both the nomination and the election. This was almost a century ago in Germany….
b&
I’m not sure that DT can be characterized as totally pro-business. Immigration (even undocumented) is a net benefit to the economy, and is generally supported by the Republican donor/business class.
Rather, I think he is pro-America, defined as the “ethnocentric” feelings of resentment from white people who think that the culture is being degraded and changed.
That said, he actually has a couple of politically smart positions that are heterodox within the Republican party. Not touching Social Security or Medicare is one.
Whether or not his policies actually would benefit businesses wasn’t really the point of my analogy. That fringe candidate from Austria a century ago, as it turned out, was the worst catastrophe for German industry in their modern history….
b&
…but not a total loss. They did produce the VW Feature.
…or in the ’80s US.
I agree with this. If Trump wins most of the primaries he has a good chance of getting the nomination. It’s likely that he’ll be defeated in the election. At that point I predict that the GOP will split apart with the formation of a proto-fascist party that will draw in the detritus of super patriots, Tea Party scum, racists, homophobes, gun fanatics, Christian degenerates, etc. The other part (what’s left of it) would end up as a right center grouping.
The rift idea would please me very much.
That’s the best case scenario. At this point, it’s not too far fetched to be dismissed. Imagine Trump continues running his campaign independently and takes 10-25% of the population, consisting solely of far right wing wackadoos with him. The Republicans finally realize they need to start over again and become what the Democrats currently are. Meanwhile, in order to distinguish themselves from the Republicans, the Democrats play on Sanders grassroots popularity and push the whole party further left. We’re left with a more European style dichotomy, where fiscal conservatism doesn’t represent fucking over 90% of the population when it comes to financial security and the social issues continue, as they have been, toward the progressive end of the spectrum. We’re left with the Tea Party being reduced to a nuisance, like summertime mosquitoes.
Pour me a big glass of that!
As I understand it, Wiemar Germany had a parliamentary system so it was Schlicklgruber’s Nazi Party that won the most votes in the Reichstag. Most Germans did not vote for him directly, just as most Canadians didn’t vote for Harper directly and most Britishers didn’t vote for Cameron directly.
Godwinned at comment 5.
The news isn’t all good. Assuming the Republicans don’t win then whoever is the Democrat nominee gets the job by default. I’ve not been paying particularly close attention to US politics lately but right now the Democrats don’t seem to have any talented successors to Obama. The best chance for the US is to somehow change the rules and allow Obama another term as far as I can see. And that’s not going to happen.
About 40% of voters are essentially ‘locked in’ GOP voters, who will punch the (R) no matter whose name is on the ballot. The same is true for Dems, only the number is I believe closer to 35%. Because of our electoral college system, this doesn’t directly translate into odds of winning and if you do it on electoral college numbers, it is more like 200 ‘locked in’ for the Dems and 190 ‘locked in’ for the GOP (with 270 needed to win).
So IMO there is no such thing as getting the job by default. No matter how bad you think the opponent’s candidate is, they start off with most of the electoral college votes they’ll eventually need to win, just by virtue of putting an (R) or (D) next to their name on the ballot. It comes down to who can get the majority share of the 25% of voters who actually occasionally change their voting habits, in those states that contain the 130 electoral college votes that aren’t a foregone conclusion as a result of gerrymandering or demographics.
For this reason, democrats and liberals should really hope for a good GOP candidate and not be rooting for one of the worse contenders to win the primary. Likewise, republicans should really be hoping that the dem candidate will not be a clown. Because no matter who the opposing party picks, that individual is only a few good campaign decisions or opponent’s campaign mistakes away from becoming President.
In the US, the following shorthand should be kept in mind. States in which Rethuglicans are heavily favored are red states (e.g. Texas, Mississippi, Utah) while states in which Democrats are heavily favored are blue states (e.g. Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington State). States that are evenly divided swing states are purple states and they decide the election (e.g. Virginia, Ohio, Florida).
the Democrats don’t seem to have any talented successors to Obama.
Bernie Sanders is a talented politician, even a statesman; a true FDR-type democrat. He’s surging, but as others have already pointed out, the nominee selection process favors the “insiders” and Senator Sanders is decidedly an “outsider”. But even modern American politics can still surprise…case in point- Obama.
Don’t forget, Trump is not just a creationist but an anti-vaxxer too: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/449525268529815552
Is the American media so statistically illiterate that they can’t realize that 75% of those polled do not approve of trump and are seemingly mesmerized by the fact that he has a “double digit” lead over the next fringe candidate. And what about the 52% that think he wouldn’t make a good president?! Which makes me wonder about what the 48% are not thinking?!!
Some Americans do not understand the joke behind the announcement preceding Saturday Night Live’s news broadcast that started in their 3rd year:
“keeping America informed for over a FIFTIETH of a century”
My fear is Trump will actually become president and we’ll all experience some sort of nuclear holocaust within a couple of weeks after.
Nah, I don’t think he’s that type. That’d be my concern with the true-believer types, those who think they are God’s instrument of wrath and justice on Earth. That’s not Trump, though. Trump is a true-believer in Trump. I doubt there are many positions he wouldn’t reverse in an instant if it’d get him more attention.
No, what would happen in the weeks after Trump became President is that he’d invite a TV crew into the White House to film his vanity Presidency 24-7. He’d renovate the White House swimming pool with great fanfare to make it more appropriately luxurious and generally embrace the role of U.S. royalty, which many Americans crave in their President anyway.
That’s what I was thinking, I wouldn’t trust him with a red button.
You can call it good news if you like but it makes me very nervous. When the present situation is something you would never have predicted, that strongly suggests to me that the future might be equally unpredictable.
exactly!
“They elected Bush twice” will always
be a reminder. Hopefully this
warning will not be replaced later
with “Don’t forget, they elected Trump!”
They elected Reagan — twice!
But the second time his brain was missing … oh no, that was some cartoon strip, not reality.
Hence my suggestion for a slogan, should Trump receive the nomination: “We had an actor in the white house for eight years; now it’s time for a clown.”
Ha! +!
Actually we only elected Bush once. Previously we’d actually elected Gore.
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/donald-trump-running-for-president/398345/"The Atlantic has a good story on Trump–I find it deliciously ironic that the Republicans, a party whose loudest elements delight in promoting conspiracy theories about everything from global warming to birth certificates, may in fact be electing a Poe. There’s a good deal of batshit crazy ideas coming from Trump, no doubt, but there’s reason to think a good number of them are simply saying what the crowds want to hear. It’s quite within the realm of possibility that Trump is simply there to destroy the Tea Party influence and ensure their loss, whether he’s the ultimate winner or not. Trump as President would be a catastrophe, but I think the reason is more that we have no idea what to expect than it is he will actually try to implement the ideas he is spewing. Of course, that’s always a possibility too…
As you note, he strikes me mainly as an unpredictable wild card. I don’t know, though, what is more worrying, an unpredictable person who occasionally says things I agree with and often things I find appalling, or a predictable person who reliably says things I find appalling. If I were forced to choose between President Trump and President Cruz, for example… well… I don’t know, I might be willing to roll the dice with Trump and hope that as President some of those things, like support for government healthcare, would once again strike his fancy.
That’s a good question. Would any of these loons once in office become more reasonable? Even acceptable broadly speaking? I actually suspect so. The first thing they would have to do is pick a cabinet which might not be ideal, but with all those personalities and all that pressure to perform, I would think that the totally ludicrous posturing we see in the primaries would give way to a somewhat practical, pro-business, conservative administration, a la G.W.B.
Shrub was quite the disaster. We can fairly lay both the shredding of the Constitution and the perpetual war in the Middle East (including ISIS) at his feet.
Yes, Obama has continued to make the situation worse, much worse…but it was Bush who lit the flame and fanned it into a raging bonfire.
b&
I’ve been accused of overoptimism before. But you are right. Who would be Donald Trump’s Dick Chaney?
No clue. Honestly, I’ve been increasingly withdrawn from politics and current affairs over the years….
b&
W will go down as a very bad president on every score one can think of.
Think of one really good thing he did? I can’t.
Kissed ass to big business and the wealthy
Put bad people on the SCOTUS
Wanted to destroy social security
Dropped the ball on terrorism and then, after 9/11, used it to subvert the US constitution and past practices
The war in the middle east
(Hugely ballooned the deficit and debt)
Acted like a clown internationally
Wiped his ass on the constitution
His cabinet members
Drove the economy into the ditch
Wait, I can think of one good thing he did:
After driving the economy in to the ditch (or, rather, lay drunk and inert in the back seat while the drunk kings of business had the wheel and drove it into the ditch), he had the guts to work with congress to avert the 2nd Great Depression (late 2008) by using the power of the US federal government to get credit moving again. He finally sobered up in the breach. But that is pretty faint praise.
Indeed. It’s like noting that the drunk who plowed into the car in front of him at least had the decency to stay on the scene and hand his insurance information to the cops.
b&
My concern is that, for the most part, Hillary and the Donald are receiving most of the media’s attention. Everything they do, say or have done/said is analyzed, criticized and reported on. They are like lightening rods that keep the zaps and scrutiny off the other candidates. One of those candidates (Bush III) will most likely be the nominee of the Republican Party. Everyone knows who Hillary is and all her foibles are also known. Trump will never be the nominee because the Republican establishment won’t let him. Meanwhile, Jeb coasts through the primaries with little or no mud thrown at him and he comes out the other side looking like the savior. We may be setting ourselves up for a third Bush in the White House…can we survive another one?
Assuming Trump follows through on his threat to run his own campaign, the votes he’ll be stealing will be from Bush, not Hillary. This would be a very good thing, as much as my sentiments toward Hillary are “meh.”
Jeb isn’t coasting.* He’s still in second but his popularity is going down, not up. See here.
If he continues to do “as well as” he did in the debate, he’s not going to be the candidate.
*Well, I should say I have no idea what his campaign advisors are telling him to do. Maybe they are telling him to coast. But from the polls, they shouldn’t be, as it doesn’t seem to be working.
I am sure lots of folks see this as just more laughs and giggles in the political world but unfortunately there is something more serious going on.
Since the early 80s there has been accelerated change taking place in American politics and mostly to the bad. There are tons of books being written about it but the negative direction is right up there with climate change.
As it becomes more destructive each year we can only guess where it ends. All past great powers came down and this one will do the same. I think this may be the first time you can sit in your living rooms and watch it happen on Television.
Second time. The demolition of the Berlin Wall (etc.) was televised….
b&
Yes, I suppose you are correct. The Berlin Wall was a part of it, or Yeltsin standing on top of a Russian Tank talking to the people. But the fall of the USSR seemed like a fast one probably because it had been slowly hollowed out for several years behind our backs. The USA has been out there in the open for anyone to see for more than half of my lifetime. What did they do while Rome burned and no internet.
Bush got elected due to a combo of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Al Gore’s rather wooden self-presentation, Bush’s pandering to the religious right and his having been the son of a previous president, and it was a very close election. Obama’s being a good family man is definitely a help here, as is Hillary’s dynamism.
Yes.
Can you imagine the howls that would have erupted from the GOP had one of the Obamas’ daughters had a “love child” outside of marriage like Sarah Palin’s daughter did?
The fact that that (Palin’s grandchild) got a pass from the “family values” GOP in 2008 is a beautiful case study in hypocrisy.
Ole Bristol is expecting her second child out of wedlock as we sit here today.
One or two more and we could see Palin switch to become semi-liberal. There is nothing like struggling with reality to make a person come back down to Earth.
I think Bristol’s earnings that are north of a quarter million per year will keep her firmly planted in fantasy land. She can promote the conservative mantra that not only can anyone can make it in the United States, even a single mother, anyone should make it if only they work hard enough!
Wouldn’t improve her IQ though.
cr
IMO, the biggest reason Bush got elected in 2000 was that Jeb Bush manipulated the Florida vote by disenfranchising tens of thousands of people, especially African Americans (the notorious “ex-fellon” list), and also cronyism. Jeb appointed an insider to be in charge of the “recount”. But alas, SCOTUS was the final dagger in the heart by not allowing the recount to happen anyway.
In 2004, he won with shameless fear mongering, and like Gore, Kerry was stiff and boring.
Agreed. Kerry was also a bit spookily indecisive.
This is just the pre-game warm-up where candidates can collect as much loot as possible, which they get to spend any way they wish. Three weeks before the election, anyone left will have moved to the center and disavowed whatever crazy stuff the ran on to get there, and just plain lie about their record. This will work, as American have the attention span of… Look! A Kardashian!
The things the GOP candidates have to say during the GOP primary season (and get recorded and replayed later) will damn them getting elected in the general.
I think they have own-goaled themselves pretty thoroughly.
Would love to think you are right. There isn’t anything they could say- or have said- that they can’t explain away or god-away. Their supporters simply don’t care.
I agree. But, now, since, 2008 or so, their supporters aren’t numerous enough to carry the US anymore.
GHW Bush rode on Reagan’s coattails.
GW Bush wasn’t elected in ’00
He was in ’04; but only through fear-mongering (and getting us mired in two bad wars)
RE: Trump leading the pack A fool and his money are soon elected. -Will Rogers Sincerely,Sawyer RankIndianapolis
The only chance Trump has of getting the nomination is if most of the other candidates stay in the race. In the recent debate most 23% considered him the winner, but 39% considered him the loser, with no one else even close.
I suspect, though I haven’t seen any polling data to support it, that almost any of the other republican candidates would be significantly ahead of him in a two man race.
This is how I see it as well. I suspect that almost everyone who ever would support Trump probably already is, and that the anyone-but-Trump sentiment is so strong that, eventually, the bulk of the 75-80% who aren’t currently supporting him will simply consolidate behind a single non-Trump candidate.
If Trump is still leading (or even trailing, but close) in the polls after the field has narrowed to two or three candidates, then we’ll have a story. But with the field as large as it is now, I think his current lead is likely an illusion.
Makes me wanna drop a couple shekels in the mail to the oft-bankrupt thousandaire’s super-PAC, keep his campaign trudging along. Almost.
It’s OK. Whoever gets elected won’t be the leader of the free world. Only the USA.
I sit in wonderment on this side of the Pond at your Electoral System, ours has its faults mainly being a Single Vote System, but we get done and dusted in a Fortnight, yours has another 15+ Months of these Shenanigans.lol
A loony candidate for the Republican nomination, hoovering up the votes from his less interesting and ideologically defined competition, whilst the Democrats lick their lips in anticipation of such a divisive character being nominated, thereby handing the next election to them on a platter…
I live in Britain and, if you switched the right-wing party with the left-wing party, the exact same could be said to be happening here with Labour, the Conservatives and Jeremy Corbyn.