The 2016 Presidential Election Trainwreck

[byu71]

I totally don't get it. Based on what one of my boys told me and what a couple of friends said, Trump had a melt down during last Saturday's debate. I saw portions of it and I would agree, another Trump soap opera moment.

A few months ago I knew people who were Trump voters. Now I know no one who is and yet they have to be out there.

Had one of those insomnia nights last night so at 4 I made the mistake of watching Morning Joe. Mika B. had that shit eating grin on her face saying Trump spoke the truth. Someone ought to run an ad with what Trump said and a clip of Mika this morning. They seemed to be so excited that the first poll came out over the weekend and Trump hadn't lost any ground.

Maybe someone on here can explain beyond there is 33% out there who really don't care what he says and like the show he is putting on.

[old_gregg]

apparently jeb's registration of jebbush.com expired, and trump bought it and it now redirects to donaldjtrump.com

[Dwight Schr-ute]

apparently jeb's registration of jebbush.com expired, and trump bought it and it now redirects to donaldjtrump.com

Jeb killing it this week. "It" is still being determined.

Embedded Tweet

[Northwestcoug]

I think a lot of us have flirted with libertarian ideas, yet reject the philosophical purity the party as a whole seems to require. I certainly have in the past. This article by Nick Gillespie, however, is making me flirt a little bit longer. Here's some excerpts:

The only important thing—and certainly the most interesting thing—about the 2016 presidential election is that neither Donald Trump nor Bernie Sanders are real members of the parties for whose nominations they are running. Yet each is burning down his political home of convenience to the ground...Unless you’re one of those suckers still carrying water for political parties that reach back before the Civil War, you have no reason to fear their destruction. In fact, the best thing that can happen to politics is that the two major parties are forced to reboot themselves like a played-out superhero movie franchise.

Jeb—whose stylized, unintentionally hilarious exclamation point must have been suggested by someone who knows him very well and hates him very much—seems to be running only because it’s been eight years since a Bush has thrown his shadow in the Oval Office. Similarly, Hillary is too busy reciting her résumé to bother explaining why her reign as president would be any less clusterfucky than her generally disastrous turn as secretary of state. This is a woman, after all, who still points to America’s intervention in Libya as an example of “smart power” at its finest.
Together, Jeb! and Hillary left the field open to interlopers such as Trump and Sanders who, even though they are unconvincing as party loyalists, are nonetheless proffering cartoon versions of what it means to be a Republican and a Democrat. Each has distilled the essence of what liberals and conservatives have to offer and the parties thus implicated will be hard pressed to survive such an unironic display of core values.

If it’s true that Trump and Sanders are the only candidates throwing off sparks, it’s worth underscoring that they are not genuinely popular among Americans writ large. Rather, they are generating intense responses among the shrinking ranks of partisans and dead-enders who respond to what they think are purer and purer distillations of what the parties really should stand for. As fewer and fewer of us choose to identify as Republicans and Democrats, those that still do will get harder- and harder-core until the number of true believers approaches zero.
And when that happens, the major parties will be forced to change what they stand for, not because they want to but because they won’t be able to win elections otherwise.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...us-madmen.html

It looks like Gillespie's recurring tag line is 'burn it all down!'. Although I still feel a sense of responsibility to choose the least worst candidate when I vote, the current political field is downright depressing. This is the best America has to offer??? Maybe Gillespie and other libertarians are on to something. Maybe it is time to consider that the American political system is in need of major renovation.

Proportional representation, anyone? Or how about a parliamentary democracy? Any takers for a monarchy?

[Color Me Badd Fan]

In three of the past five polls, Kasich is beating Bush in South Carolina. In a Nevada poll released today, Bush is getting 1%.

Wtf is Ben Carson still in the race? I guess he wants to sell more books.

[Northwestcoug]

In three of the past five polls, Kasich is beating Bush in South Carolina. In a Nevada poll released today, Bush is getting 1%.

Wtf is Ben Carson still in the race? I guess he wants to sell more books.

Totally agree. He is not a serious candidate. There is only one reason why he is still in the race.

[Moliere]

Nikki Haley is endorsing Rubio and even Mike Lee is stumping for Rubio.

I'm beginning to believe that anyone that has dealt with Cruz hates his guts. Even his bff Mike Lee won't endorse him.

[BlueK]

S. Carolina is being polled pretty heavily this week and Trump doesn't seem to be growing his number beyond the low to mid 30s. The movement seems to be among the next four with a good number of voters jumping from one to another. This makes me think Trump isn't too many voters' second choice, except for with the oddball Carson supporters perhaps. And even though I think Cruz is kind of creepy, the really nasty way Trump is attacking him makes me think those who like Cruz will never go for Trump.

[Uncle Ted]

It seems that majority of the Trump supporters in south carolina wished that the south had won the civil war...



And a good number of them support banning homosexuals from entering the US:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...is-terrifying/

[Northwestcoug]

Embedded Tweet

[Pelado]

Embedded Tweet

That's great.

[BlueK]

Trump is hitting a ceiling in the S. Carolina polls and even starting to drop a few points. In one of the most recent ones he's down to 29%. If he was going to run away with the nomination his numbers should be into the 40s by now, especially considering he was polling almost to that level in SC only a few weeks ago. He's got the "populist" non-conformist, non-traditional types, but I don't see him being able to win over the more traditional GOP bases of evangelical social conservatives (Cruz and Carson), or the more conventional pro-business faction (split now almost evenly across Rubio, Bush and Kasich) This could very well be split along thirds by the time it gets to the convention between Trump, Cruz and whichever one of the establishment group of 3 is left standing. That would be interesting to watch.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...mary-4151.html

[Jeff Lebowski]

His Popeness drops the holy hammer on Trump.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/wo...christian.html

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,”

[Maximus]

*unless they are around the Vatican

[Omaha 680]

His Popeness drops the holy hammer on Trump.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/wo...christian.html

I build bridges all the time! Tell us what you think about railroad bridges, holy father.