Trump, Carson still leading GOP pack

115 thoughts on “Trump, Carson still leading GOP pack”

1. ” But to us liberals it’s all good, for neither of these men stands a chance defeating any potential Republican candidate (and, barring indictment for the email kerfuffle or some unforeseen embarrassment in the upcoming House hearings on the Benghazi affair, the candidate will likely be Hillary Clinton).”

   Surely you mean Democratic candidate.

   1. Indeed! Fixed, thanks.

2. Honestly, any combination of the republican choices would be the dream team for liberals. Conservatives are so leary of any type of change/progress…it’s become the party of stagnation at best, at worst the party of regression.

3. It’s really difficult to express the embarrassment as this unfolds for all to witness. I too expect a cake walk for the demos but also hope it does damage to the republican congress as well. Maybe we are seeing the destruction of the republican party and they will slip back under that rock and evolve into something better.

   1. I think a fissure between the Teabaggers and the “sanity” wing of the GOP is possible. They’ve been tearing each other to ribbons lately. And I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.

      I think btoh are stumped by their inability to muster a national win by appealing only to white males. (Bush, IMO, was an aberration. He wasn’t actually elected in 2000 and then got us into a war to ensure reelection in 2004.)

      The US moral Zeitgeist is leaving them behind.

      My only worry is that the Trumpster might pull a a Reagan on us. Which I see as being as much a disaster as the Jesse Ventura administration was in MN. However, on the plus side, I suspect a President Trump (Ceiling Cat forbid!) would be a whole lot less socially conservative than the GOP thinks he would be.

      1. I suspect a President Trump (Ceiling Cat forbid!) would be a whole lot less socially conservative than the GOP thinks he would be.

         Indeed. I think it’s impossible to predict what what a Trump presidency would even look like since he seems to be winging it moment to moment and making his positions up as he goes.

         One thing I think we could count on is lots of TV cameras inside the White House.

         1. With any luck, cabinet meetings would be filmed as episodes of the reality TV show, Presidential Apprentice.

            1. Because of his desire for screen time, he might usher in a new age of government transparency.

      2. Well, lets just hope even the image of Trump in the white house remains just that – a terrible image. Wow, if going to war is what got him reelected in 2004, that’s almost too much embarrassment to take.

      3. You mean Jesse, The Body, “I ain’t got time to bleed(!),” Ventura wasn’t a good Governer? You’re shattering my fantasies!

   2. Except they don’t believe in evolving, either.

4. In some ways a Trump/Carson ticket might be considered a win/win situation, because if either one is elected president it’s likely to be so disastrous and embarrassing that there will be a mass exodus out of the Republican party and, by extension, out from a hard conservative viewpoint.

   It’s like the nuclear option. Both of them are astonishingly inept, unqualified, and prone to making mistakes and blunders out in public where everyone can see them. Nothing raises awareness, passion, and commitment like a powerful and dangerous enemy. So we would also be able to watch all the politically apathetic middling-in-the-middle suddenly rise up and gird their loins for battle… and jokes. Lots and lots of mocking laughter and incisive sarcasm, weapons which should never be scorned.

   If these candidates manage to keep their majority lead up to the actual selection of GOP candidates, we just can’t lose this one, folks.

   1. Trump would actively blunder. I think a Carson presidency would mostly be a RNP presidency, with them picking his advisors and the Speaker of the House and House Republicans being the ones who set the party’s legislative priorities. IOW a very weak presidency, and maybe less blunder-prone (in comparison to Trump) because of that.
      But its a moot point. All the bigots who invented faux reasons to oppose Obama aren’t going to put Carson in the White House. Probably 25% of the GOP base would desert if he was their candidate going into the general election. I don’t think anyone has a lock on the Presidency, but “the Democratic opponent of Carson” has about as good a lock as its possible to get.

      1. Unfortunately, the latest polls show that while Democratic candidates win in a head to head showdown with Trump, Carson does much better. He’s ahead by two points against Clinton (admittedly within the margin of error) but ahead double digits against Sanders. I can’t remember the figures off the top of my head, but Sanders was 32-34, and Carson as much as 20 points higher. Clinton/Carson was 46/48 I think.

         I don’t think there would be the same reaction to Carson as there was to Obama by those who consider race a factor. Carson’s views make him much more acceptable.

5. It would be great if all the less insane (and therefore electable) Republicans were forced to bow out early, leaving these lunatics behind. My only fear is that Americans will completely take leave of their senses and vote for them. I thought Bush the Younger would mess things up (which he did) and therefore get hammered after one term….

   1. But what a good campaign slogan:

      We tried electing the village idiot as president — 9/11, $3 trillion wars, thousands of dead American soldiers, recession, etc. Let’s not make that same mistake again!

   2. I strongly disagree with your first observation because of your second. 🙂

      You never know what can happen in the general; last-minute scandal, bad misstep, heck even heart attack. No Democrat right now has an iron lock on the election. So I want (and IMO we should all hope for) the general election race to be between the best available GOP and Dem candidates.

      1. Exactly. If the US can elect Bush jr twice then they can elect anyone.

6. ‘But to us liberals it’s all good, for neither of these men stands a chance defeating any potential Republican candidate’

   Should Republican read Democrat?

   1. Fixed already, thanks.

7. Are you sure about Trump and Carson losing? I have little faith in an electorate that would elect G Bush TWICE!
   Well, keep your passports UTD if the Rs win!

   1. Indeed, be careful what you wish for…I made the mistake of assuming that Bush had no chance in the primary against McCain and that even if something weird happened and he was the nominee nobody would be stupid enough to vote for him

   2. “it’s only funny until someone gets hurt.”

   3. Well, Bush Jr. wasn’t actually elected in 2000. The Supreme Court placed him on the throne.

      The only reason he was reelected (which I grant) in 2004 is that people were freaked out by 9/11 and he had gotten us into two (amazingly expensive) wars. Don;t change riders during a fight … blah, blah, blah.

      1. Al Franken had a book (I think it was Lies: And the Lying Liars that Tell Them) in which he describes how the 2nd Bush election was basically managed by keeping the Americans scared of an imminent but never unspecified terrorist threat. Remember the extended time where every couple months we went to code orange b/c of “chatter”? The dept of homeland security was openly puzzled about these announcements b/c the events were nothing unusual, really. But CNN would repeatedly cancel its planned programming and cover it all day.
         Then, when Bush got re-elected, the warnings stopped.

         1. Indeed.

            And that’s the right book. My Senator!

            Here he is (Senator Franken is the shorter guy):

         2. Yes, and I wonder why no one really called him out on that. Those warnings suddenly disappeared when he got reelected. Should have been a HUGE scandal, and nothing. Everyone noticed it who was paying attention, but the media and Bush’s opponents ignored it.

            I find it amusing how now they look back (well Jeb anyway) saying he kept us safe. WTF? Yeah, he kept us safe after 9/11…and so did Obama. But he didn’t keep us safe. To be fair, either did FDR with Pearl Harbor, but please stop saying he kept us safe.

8. They seem almost opposite in personalities, Ben Carson acting very avuncular even when he says bigoted things, while Trump is like a cartoon parody of Clint Eastwood. Carson is the “we like spiritual” side of the Republican party and Trump is the macho muscle guy.

   I recently learned that Carson used to have a violent temper as a young man and turned to religion after nearly fatally stabbing someone. He would seem then to be a classic case of a cure (of sorts) having all kinds of undesirable side effects. The sweet demeanor he maintains when saying anti-gay statements is really jarring.

   I tend to think that Trump is lying about his birther beliefs and is in fact just pandering to a segment of the electorate, as I suspect he’s lying about having a friend whose son’s autism is clearly vaccine related.

   1. How about his claim that his favorite book is the bible (even though he’s not able to cite any specific verses)? Think The Donald’s stretching the truth a bit there, too?

9. But to us liberals it’s all good, for neither of these men stands a chance defeating any potential Republican candidate

   Simple typo; I’m sure you meant ‘…Democratic candidate.’

   I suppose they find Trump’s “populist” candor refreshing

   Actually I think it’s his lack of candor. Trump almost never says how he’s going to fix problems or accomplish goals, his answer is always basically deux ex machina, “I’ll get the best people together and [poof!] they’ll come up with a policy so good it will make your head spin.” Granted, this is a very standard rhetorical technique: if you never take a position your opponents can’t poke holes in it. Trump is just so much more obvious and blatant about it.

   IMO the other candidates have been intentionally sitting back, waiting for an implosion, and conserving their funds for the Feb-Jun primary cycle. With the first primary being held on 1 Feb, I wouldn’t expect Bush, Christie, Cruz, and Rubio to start spending significant cash on advertisements and trying to really unseat Trump until early January.

   1. Yes, your second paragraph.

      There have been big changes in the lead during the primaries the last two elections. I predict the same this time around.

      I will say that I am glad:

      1. Scott Walker has thrown in the towel
      2. Palin isn’t running

10. My guess is that Jon Stewart is regretting his retirement right now. He would have so much material…!

    1. I’m having a hard time enjoying Trevor Noah in the host role of “The Daily Show”. He tries to be as snarky as John, but doesn’t quite pull it off. Or, at least, that’s my perception. I’d like to ask other members of the WEIT Commentariat what their impressions of young Trevor might be, if that’s okay. I ask this here because the readers and commenters on WEIT are the most insightful group of which I regularly engage.

       1. Give him time – he’s been on the job less than a month. It’s easy for us to remember Stewart’s brilliance over the last several years, but easy to forget that even Stewart’s early time at the Daily Show wasn’t all that great either. Noah’s got potential, and I think he’ll improve a good deal once he’s more comfortable in the role and develops his own style rather than trying to be Stewart 2.0 as he seems to be now (this could also be at least in part a failure of the writers to adjust to the new host, as a lot of the jokes feel like they are still designed to be delivered in Stewart’s rhetorical style)).

          1. That’s what I’m hoping as well, but for some reason I don’t have confidence in it. Hey, I’ve been wrong more often than not in foreseeing future unfoldings.

             1. Does anyone miss the Colbert Show…he just doesn’t cut it for me as the Late Night host. Too smiley and amiable…that was to be expected for sure, but it rubs me wrong somehow. I stopped watching after the first week.

             2. I miss the Report, yes. They were a near perfect one/two punch, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and now they’re gone. It saddens me. I agree with your Late Night assessment. It’s a new ballgame for Colbert, to be sure, so we don’t get the same performance. I hope nothing but success for him, though.

       2. I think Noah is okay. There are good, bad, and meh segments. But that is not too far away from Stewart. As Pali said, he and the writing should get better.

          However, John Oliver is really rocking it now. As well as being funny, some of his long segments have been quite informative and poignant.

          1. Agreed. Last Week Tonight is some of the best TV around these days.

             1. Yep, right there with you…John Oliver is on a roll.

          2. John Oliver’s show is my favorite on TV right now, which says a lot for the show itself as John can be a bit irritating. But his comedy and his investigative reporting is top notch.

       3. I’ve only watched his very first (taped) episode because we’ve been away. Hard to tell. He’s very likeable but maybe has to move into the snark gradually. Hope he’s kept Jessica Williams! I really really miss Jon.

          1. So far, Jessica has remained on the show, plus Trevor has added one of my favorite comedians, Roy Wood, Jr., to the roving reporter roster. Roy is growing into his new role as well, but I expect he’ll be great soon enough.

             1. Happily saw Jessica on one (taped) we watched last night. Is Roy the big black guy?

             2. He is, yes.

11. Sub

12. Isn’t Trump’s knowledge of Christianity equal to that of a Sunday school seven year old? How does Carson reconcile this the faith based nonsense he claims are fundamental laws of the cosmos?

    1. Easy…he is a full blown SDA member.

    2. Trump’s knowledge of most things is probably as the 7-year-old level.

13. Although I vote Democratic for good reasons, I always want the Republicans to put forward a good, competent candidate for president. Why? Because sometimes the Republican gets elected. Weird things happen, and I’d hate to see either Trump or Carson elected, especially with the Republican majority in the House and Senate that they will have.

    1. Being an outsider, I also wonder.

       Would it not be better to have a ‘good’ Republican candidate? (S)he does not really have to be a Lincoln, but something like Eisenhower. Was Ike the the last of the ‘good’ Republican presidents? (assuming he was ‘good’ -he was well before my time- but I have some brilliant citations by him)

       What makes us so sure Trump or Carson actually would lose? Is that really a forgone conclusion?
       And if so, is that not a devastating blow to the 2-party system? Would we not want to be able to choose between 2 *reasonable* alternatives? I mean, if one choice is completely bunkers, what are the qualities needed in the other candidate? Just not being completely off the rails? It’s rather sad, methinks.

       1. Oh, trust me, many Americans would love another Eisenhower!

          Colin Powell could be elected as a sane, middle of the road Republican if it weren’t for the viler parts of the GOP* (who went after him by publicizing his wife’s mental health issues when he started making Presidential sounds back in 2008).

          We all wish for the days of people like Dave Durenberger (from MN) Nelson Rockefeller (NY) and many other middle of the road former GOP figures.

       2. I was, sorry to say, alive when Eisenhower was elected (about ten years old at the time) but yes, in hindsight he probably was the last good republican pres. We know that Lincoln was the first and by far the best. Also ranked number one among all presidents. Imagine, the best ever was also the least educated.

          1. I remember Ike ( I like Ike ) for implementing the Interstate Highway System and playing golf.

             1. I think the thing that Ike wanted known about his presidency was — That he kept us out of war. That was something during the heart of the cold war.

             2. The Civil Rights movement got going under Ike with the integration of schools. Remember the National Guard in Little Rock?

             3. Ike was a reluctant civil-rights champion. He eventually stood up and did the right thing by sending the 101st Airborne to Little Rock to make sure those nine black kids could attend a taxpayer funded public school — but only after dithering around exploring all his other options.

    2. Like sedgequeen said. I am not EVER going to vote for the wife of an ex-president (This is not Argentina.), and I may end up having to vote for the Republican, whoever he or she is.

       1. “I am not EVER going to vote for the wife of an ex-president ”

          That is among the worst justifications for choosing a candidate that I’ve heard.

          I withdraw your right to vote.

       2. I have to second Scott Draper’s comment. That’s a terrible reason to refuse to vote for someone.

          And what if the choice presented ends up being the wife of an ex-pres or the brother and son of ex-presidents? Is one worse than the other?

          1. If you want a monarchy, go ahead and vote for one. I will be voting against it. And yeah, a Bush is similarly disqualified. I didn’t vote for the second one, and I was right, wasn’t I?

             1. Voting in someone related to a previously elected leader is not voting in a monarchy unless Hillary declares that Chelsea shall inherit after Hillary is President for life. Your hyperbole does not fly with me.

       3. Takes an idiosyncratic frame of reference to view Evita as US political procedural.

          Guess John Quincy Adams and Bobby Kennedy (had he lived past the California primary in ’68) would have run out-of-the-money for you, too.

14. I have grown to like the fact that Trump has no qualms about raising uncomfortable (for Republicans) topics, like calling out Jeb Bush on his “W kept us safe” BS. He is the very definition of a useful idiot.

    1. Yes, that is one positive of the Trump campaign. He has also mentioned the possibility of raising taxes, and has criticised the job Scott Walker has done destroying Wisconsin (through the application of Republican economics).

       1. I am grateful that Walker’s campaign was a small fizzle and he’s gone now. I had a bit of fear there for a while.

       2. In the first debate Trump defended his past support of single-payer healthcare too, which no standard GOP candidate would do.

    2. I agree. I can’t say how refreshing it is to see ANY break from the lock-step GOP ideological orthodoxy. Conservatives actually having to discuss raising taxes, universal health care, whether GW “kept us safe”, Walker’s legacy, and so on, strikes me as very healthy, though it’s an odd kind of medicine.

       The conservatives are right: he’s no conservative, at least not in the current standard mold. He’s a xenophobic populist if he is anything, and I kind of doubt he is anything (most of it strikes me as show). It will be interesting to see if any of his departures from orthodoxy seeps into the GOP base and shifts the GOP’s Overton Window on a few issues.

       1. Trump’s unorthodoxy doesn’t impress me because he’s basically a pro-business changeling who will say anything about social policy in order to get elected. You can’t count on him following through with *anything* except probably lowering taxes on the rich and deregulating financial and real estate institutions. So once he’s in office, will he support single payer? Probably not. Oppose trickle down economic policies put forward by GOP Housemembers? Probably not. Raise taxes on the rich? Probably not.

          You can’t trust anything he says beyond his own self-interest. IMO that makes him a far worse candidate than the others, because the whole point of democracy is that we choose through representation the views that will get promulgated. Electing someone like Trump is more like we the people picking random policies out of a hat rather than picking the ones we prefer, because you never actually know what policies you’re going to get (beyond his own self-interest).

          1. I’m not saying he should be elected. Heavens no!

             I agree totally. Electing Trump would be EXACTLY like picking random policies out of a hat, because I don’t think he has a coherent view of any policy issue. It’s an interesting question, perhaps, whether random policies out of a hat would be better than implementing the GOP orthodoxy, but in any case I’m not suggesting Trump would be a good President, only that his presence in the GOP primary forces the GOP to talk about things they would NEVER talk about otherwise, and that part of it could be healthy. There are a lot of people in the GOP (not many presidential candidates, though) who would like to have a more compromise and reality based set of policy positions, but they dare not speak it because someone will kill them in a primary from the further right. Trump is the only candidate in ages who has defied this iron rule. If a Trump candidacy opens up even a crack for more sober candidates to talk about these things, then it’s useful (so long as he doesn’t make it President).

             1. All the Tea Party caucus calls other Republicans RINOs, but they currently number about 40, and there are over 200 so-called RINOs. Who are the real RINOs?

                It’s surely better for the country, and certainly your international reputation, to have two well qualified candidates for president for the people to choose from.

                It’s also good for a government to have a strong, credible opposition to keep them honest and on their toes. The value of a good opposition is much under-appreciated imo. However, they should be able to work together for the sake of the country, and the GOP has singularly failed to do that.

       2. … I kind of doubt [Trump] is anything ..

          I think we can chalk him up as a world-class narcissist and blowhard. Throw in vulgarian and public-policy ignoramus, too.

15. I am actually kind of terrified of either of them actually winning. But this is my general feeling from most of their candidates this time around.

16. If Biden chooses to run, he’ll certainly defeat any of the GOP candidates. I think the more important question is what will happen to that cesspool of a GOP after their
    collapse in the election of 2016. You have to recognise that there is a significant fascist element present in the Tea Party contingent of the GOP: racist, homophobic,
    hyper-religious, anti-immigrant, etc.
    My guess is that there will emerge a 3rd party to which this scum will gravitate and
    the GOP will be left with the “moderates”.
    Note what is happening in Europe with the rise of Le Pen, UKIP, Golden Dawn, etc.
    All of this points back to the stagnation of capitalism with its tendency to impoverish the middle and working classes while enriching the pigs at the top of society.

    1. The radical right and Tea Party aren’t about to leave the GOP. Because of their successful gerrymandering efforts, the Republicans have so many “safe” seats in the House of Representatives (and in the state legislatures) that the only real threat most Republican incumbents face is getting “primaried” from their right by even crazier Tea-Party candidates. This rightwing/Evangelical/Tea-Party base also controls much of the Republican presidential primary process — which is why you see the GOP presidential candidates in virtual lockstep on the issues the base holds dear: immigration, abortion, gun control, climate-change denialism, etc.

       One of the ironies of the current political alignment is that the GOP base now occupies essentially the same spot on the paranoid reactionary wing of the ideological spectrum as the nut cases — the John Birch Society and the Ayn Rand acolytes; the isolationists and anti-Semites and race-baiters — who got purged from the Republican party, and from the then-burgeoning conservative movement, in the early 1960s to give party and movement a patina of respectability and to clear the way for Barry Goldwater’s 1964 run at the White House.

       You don’t need much more evidence to see that these wingnuts have the run of the Republican asylum than to look at the polls showing that 40-some percent of registered Republicans still believe that Obama is a foreign-born secret Muslim Marxist, intent on rotting the Republic from within.

       If anybody’s leaving in a GOP break-up, it’s the few remaining Republican party “moderates” who will decamp. The reactionary rump of the GOP will take on permanent minority status in terms of national poll numbers. Unfortunately, because of all those safe, gerrymandered seats in congress — and, even more so, in the local governments of the red states — the dysfunctional wacko wing will remain a political voice disproportionate to its popularity among the electorate as a whole for some time to come.

17. While it is likely that the Democratic candidate, probably Hillary Clinton, would defeat Trump or Carson, this result would only maintain the status quo, which is not very good. This is because the Republicans would still maintain the House of Representatives, perhaps the Senate, and control most of the state governments. The Democratic Party has failed miserably on the state level, resulting in a flood of right-wing legislation being passed. These articles why the situation is dire.

    http://www.salon.com/2015/10/20/the_democratic_party_is_in_deep_trouble_the_big_question_that_bernie_sanders_is_at_least_trying_to_answer/

    http://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9565119/democrats-in-deep-trouble

    By the way, these articles are only a few that I have read on the topic. Liberals living in red states know exactly what I am talking about.

    1. Correction: “These articles explain why …”

    2. I would agree with everything you say and the articles as well. The republicans have taken over at the state level as well as in congress at the federal level. But the future does not look so good as they make out. Birth rates alone say goodbye to some of those wins. As long as the minorities are not voting republican they have no where to go but down. Also, the very large error in our current constitution (2 Senators per state) has been a great plus for the republicans. One of the many reasons it almost makes one throw up every time we all speak of democracy in this country but this really screwed up representation and is a great thing for the old white men. If California and New York came even a little closer with representation in this body, the republicans could kiss the Senate goodbye.

       1. I like the 2 senators per state, it ensures that Vermont or Montana gets a say on national affairs, or we’ll end up with California, Texas and New York dictating national policy. Representation based on population already exists, it’s called the house of representatives. The senate represent states, the house represents the actual population. Did you fail civics class?

          1. One doesn’t need to have failed civics to think that a system created when the population difference between states had an extreme of about 10-1 should be reviewed and possibly changed when the ratio is approaching 100-1 (and was agreed to in part due to the fear that the smaller states would break away from the newly formed Union without it). I’m not saying that the Senate necessarily should be done away with, but you don’t need to be rude to people just because they express a different political philosophy to your own.

       2. The non-democratic US Senate (two senators per state, regardless of population) was part of the price the more-populous states in the North were forced to pay to the less-populous, slave-holding states of the South to keep the Southern states from bolting the Union during the constitutional convention. The Senate (along with the other constitutional sops to slavery, such as the infamous 3/5ths rule) worked so well in this regard that it took a civil war to end the South’s “peculiar institution.”

          Even after it lost the Civil War, the states of the former Confederacy were able to prevent any federal interference with Jim Crow, primarily due to the inability to get legislation restricting it through the Senate. Hell, the Southern congressional delegation (during much of this time under the expert field generalship of Georgia senator Richard Russell) had such a stranglehold on the Senate (especially given the Senate’s arcane procedural rules, such as the filibuster and the selection of the Senate’s key committee chairmanships) that it took almost a century after the Civil War ended before the nation could get something as anodyne as a simple federal anti-lynching statute passed.

    3. Didn’t I just hear yesterday that Texas is going to de-fund Planned Parenthood? The videos that anti-choice organisation made are given as one of the reasons why.

18. In 1980 some Democrats were jubilant at the GOP nomination of the absurd Ronald Reagan. Of course he would never be elected. It would be a Demo shoo-in. Oops.

    1. Absolutely agree with you. I never thought that Americans would be so stupid as to elect a “B” movie actor President.

       1. That wasn’t his only job, to be fair. He had also been governor of a very large State for 8 years. Governorships are often a route to Washington. There was some logic in his candidacy.

       2. Re: a certain “B” movie actor:

          As Jack Warner, the studio head of Warner Brothers, said upon learning that Reagan had been elected governor of California:

          “No, no, no! Jimmy Stewart for Governor. Ronald Reagan should play his best friend.”

19. The primaries are in February and March, so there is still time for the others to catch up.

20. Has everyone donated to his candidate? I have.

21. Trump and Carson are almost as funny as Doug Ford wanting to be Prime Minister of Canada.
    But seriously Donald Trump is the stereotypical American to many Canadians and Europeans. I hope that you are correct in your appraisal that the ignoramus does not stand a chance of being elected POTUS.
    Americans have elected Ted Cruz, George Bush, Huckabee, Scott Walker , Sarah Palin and Kim Davis to public office so I’m not convinced.

    1. Most of those characters were elected at the state level, except Bush. Anything is possible there. Even if Trump would be the republican’s choice, he will go no further.

       Trump is the perfect idiot for the republican long campaign. He is a walking billboard of himself, a twin brother to P.T. Barnum. There is a sucker born every minute. A legend in his own mind. He is his own PR staff. He is huge. Did I forget anything?

       The republican voters are easily tricked – like candy from babies. Where else is a group of voters happy to be screwing down and give more tax breaks to the rich.

22. I find it hard to believe Trump actually wants the nomination. He’s just burnishing his brand. He would absolutely hate being president–far too much work, too constraining, too oppressive. Rather, he’s all about the deal. He’ll take his pledged delegates to the convention and trade them for the standard bearer’s support in business or tax policies.

    1. Being president is lots of work if you take it seriously, but who says he’d take it seriously? The government will run itself if you let it. Did George W work hard? Or did Dick Cheney, et. al. do the hard work for him? I don’t get the impression that Trump actually cares much about any particular policy issue. If you don’t have a strong agenda, if you don’t care what policies get implemented, someone else in your administration will care and you can let them do the work.

       Constraining, I can see that being an issue for him… but there again, one would think that campaigns are constraining too, but he seems to get away with flaunting that. Who knows, he might be our first president to spend significant time in the French Riviera while in office. Americans kind of want their president to be a king, and to look like one. I can see Trump getting away with, for example, making the White House pool much more luxurious, etc., because he openly embraces that image of wealth-success-king-of-the-world, and lots of people would love him for “enjoying” the presidency instead of making it a dour exile into reality-land.

    2. Trump is actually a workaholic. He may not enjoy all the work that comes with the presidency, but if he puts his mind to it, I think he will find the energy to work his ass off when he beats Hillary next year.

23. I think the most revealing thing about a Trump-Carson victory would be what it says about the level of education in the United States these days.

    1. Actually, I think it says a lot more about people’s attention span and their desire for quick and easy answers than it does about education.

       I know many highly educated and intelligent professionals who support the GOP. Most are groaning over Trump and Carson. but they will continue to vote conservative. They are all, to a person, religious of course.

       Based on what my wife has to teach to 1st and 2nd grade children (mid-sized US city), younger people have far more education than I did.

       It’s the John Wayne syndrome. Wishing for simpler days when white men were exclusively in charge.

       1. I would counter that the desire for quick and easy answers is in fact related to education, at least the kind of education that fosters critical thinking. That is what is lacking at primary and secondary levels.

    2. It is the noncollege educated who are the main supporters of Trump. As Ron Brownstein in the National Journal puts it:

       “Both national and state polls show Trump opening a substantial lead among Republican voters without a college education almost everywhere. And in almost all cases, Trump is winning more support from noncollege Republicans than any candidate is attracting from Republican voters with at least a four-year education. “It’s a challenge to Republicans that nobody has consolidated the college graduate vote against Trump,” says Glen Bolger, a longtime GOP pollster skeptical of the front-runner.”

       http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-america/newsdesk/trump-lead-alienates-white-collar-voters

       This situation is but another example of how certain groups of people are susceptible to the appeal of the demagogue. In particular, people who feel economically squeezed need to find a cause for their woes. Unfortunately, they often choose the wrong cause, in this case, immigrants.

       1. However, his support among the college educated has actually been increasing, especially as second choice. He’s managing to convince people he could do it.

          1. I should have added that it’s still much lower amongst the college educated.

       2. “It is the noncollege educated who are the main supporters of Trump. As Ron Brownstein in the National Journal puts it:”

          But I think it unlikely that the lack of education is the causal factor in their support. It’s probably more of a class issue, which is correlated with education.

       3. … polls show Trump opening a substantial lead among Republican voters without a college education …

          A big part of this is simple name recognition. To folks who spend much of their leisure time watching commercial TV, Trump is the one household name in the race. Plus, he says stuff that pisses off people they would like to piss off, and that sounds like something they might say (mainly because, like them, Trump has never given serious thought to public policy issues that don’t affect his business interests).

24. I don’t know how reliable this site is, but:

    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/252825-poll-trump-beats-hillary-head-to-head

    There is also, of course, this:

    http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-sanders

    In Poland, people from the left joked that our previous president Komorowski would have to drive over a pregnant nun while drunk in order to lose. As you know, he did lose. He was leading in polls. The hypothesis was that people were ashamed to admit they would vote for Duda when asked in polls. Couldn’t the same be in effect in US?

    1. I was going to say it would probably hurt him more if sober than drunk.

       I think polls more than a year before the election and who knows how long before you are even down to two candidates are a waste of time really. It’s just that the media has nothing else to do so they call people up and ask them stupid questions. It is easier than doing their job.

25. Herman Cain was the republican frontrunner 4 years ago at this time, so anything can still happen.

26. Reading his political positions, Carson is as much of a heavy government statist as Hillary.

    Not much choice. Once again.

27. I suspect that Carson would be easy to elect, if he gets the nomination. The bulk of republicans would vote for him out of party loyalty; the tea-party yahoos, to prove “they’re not really racist”; the white democrats because they’re equally anxious to prove they’re not racist; and the minority democrats because last election showed us how little they like Hilary, on the whole.

    Also, Carson has the whole “he’s a doctor, so he must be wise” thing going for him — most people don’t realize he’s a raving loon who thinks the Earth is 10,000 years old.

    Either outcome, though: Bush-> Obama-> Carson or Bush -> Obama -> Clinton, in my mind will be no different, policy-wise, than Bush -> Bush -> Bush. And that makes me very sad indeed.

    1. Carson would crash and burn under the intense scrutiny he’d get as the actual GOP candidate, especially since it would no longer be just the Republican base whose attention he was playing to.

       Carson is a not-ready-for-primetime GOP novelty act. (Indeed, look for him to crash and burn as the Republican field narrows, well before a nominee is selected, probably not long after the votes actually begin to count.)

    2. Potentially Carson is a threat to Democrats, an educated, well to do, black conservative.

       The Dems have for years tried (somewhat successfully) to buy black votes with promises of more government money, essentially treating them as perpetual victims who ‘need’ the Democratic party. It’s always been an awkward alliance, many black people in the US are politically and socially conservative (judging from my neighbors, at least), sticking with Democrats only because they offered a better package

       1. You overlook the extent to which the GOP alienated black voters by opening its bosom to the overtly racists Dixiecrats (the old Strom Thurmond/Jesse Helms types) who abandoned the Democratic party en masse after LBJ rammed the federal civil rights/voting rights/fair housing legislation through congress in the mid-1960s.

          This pandering to racists constituted Nixon’s vaunted “southern strategy” in the ’68 and ’72 presidential elections — and has continued apace among his Republican successors. (See, for example, Ronald Reagan’s kicking off his 1980 campaign with his infamous “states’ rights” speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, site of the vicious 1964 murders of three civil-rights workers, as well as GHW Bush’s equally infamous “Willie Horton” ad campaign during the ’88 election). This strategy accounts for why the former Jim Crow states constitute the most solidly red block in the Union. It’s going to take more than nominating a dilettante like Ben Carson to get black voters to ignore this ugly Republican history.

          1. Golly, and remember when the “Solid South” meant just the opposite?

28. Be careful what you wish for. Trump is engaging the moderates too. Everyone knows he’s playing a character, but his history shows that he is a social progressive and a fiscal conservative. That describes the center quite well. He’s hamming up to the base, to assure them he is not a Manchurian candidate. But if (and when, if the left continues to belittle his campaign) Trump wins, he will revert to the center. I doubt if he will truly build a wall at the border, but he will definitely be standing up to China.

    Hillary is also a moderate but is way less popular with the swing votes. As a moderate-to-left voter, I have not dismissed Trump, especially if Hillary pushes her anti-gun agenda (and the majority of unaffiliated voters are pro-gun).

    Carson should be rightly mocked. Unlike Trump, Carson’s appeal is only to the Conservative base, but even they are not too keen on voting for a “colored” candidate. Carson is not a winnable nominee.

29. What always puzzles me about US politics is how the party that produces progressively less and less plausible candidates for president nevertheless keeps winning control of Congress. Are large numbers of people voting Dem for the White House but Rep for Congress? Or are the Dems simply not bothering to vote in the off-year elections (i.e. those not coinciding with a presidential vote), and thus losing by default? Or is party discipline so weak, and party identification so elastic, that folks just don’t associate the GOP of the presidential candidates with the GOP of their local senator and representatives?

    1. None of the above. During the Bush years, when Republicans had clear majorities in the legislatures of the red and purple states, they used their power ruthlessly to draw up gerrymandered congressional districts that would vote reliably Republican.

       Because of this — and because each of the more numerous red states gets the same two US senators as the more populous blue states — Republicans can elect majorities in both houses of congress even where a majority of nationwide voters cast their ballots for Democratic candidates.

       1. Ach, I’d forgotten about the gerrymandering.

30. One thing that makes the popularity of Trump and Carson among “Republicans” a bit misleading, and worse news for the party, is that Republicans, or people who lean Republican, or a decided minority in the U.S. http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/

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