posted
I'm not surprised. Political junkies are following the day-by-day, but the average person is now.
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Trump is like a person I once knew who was an elegant combination of amoral egoism and basketcasery to the extent that it was useless to try to figure out which of his actions were a concerted con, and which of his actions were the result of nutbar beliefs that became bizarrely contradictory as time went on.
He is literally in federal prison now for some sort of real estate or wire fraud our some crap like that and to this day I don't know if it's more because he's an idiot and got suckered into being a fall guy, or if he actually knowingly committed these frauds. Either is as likely a guess.
Same with trump. You can neither attribute malice or stupidity in sum because the core of his personality makes these things functionally identical in practice.
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Polls right at this point in the race aren't meaningless, but they're also, historically, not particularly predictive of just about anything.
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It doesn't bother me in the sense that I'm worried he will win, but it bothers me because...44% of those surveyed would vote for him? Really? Before it was just registered Republican voters that he was polling high with, but this was a random sample. When the Trump Show started a few months ago, I never would've believed he would poll like this.
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I'm not surprised. This is a populist election season and he's proven very adept at a populist voice over the last couple years.
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Kasich is the only GOP candidate who doesn't fall back on pandering during those moments when issues get discussed.
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I was actually kind of sad for Bush during that debate. I think he's wrong on most things, but his attempts to be the adult in the room were painful to watch when he was clearly baffled by the entire endeavor.
On the other hand, if that's how he deals with an uncomfortable situation...it's one of the few times I've ever seen someone really collapse under pressure in a way that makes me wonder how he'd be in the Sit Room at the White House when The Call comes in. I used to think he was on the list of the least bad options since he was at least someone moderate on paper. But now he's on my No Go List.
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bush is still the most likely candidate to end up on top at the end of the race, especially what with his Hillary-level long game endorsements and fundraising.
which makes it interesting to see how pitiful he looks up there on stage.
but ben carson, man, there's a dude who knows how to party. it was really bold of him to show up on stage so baked on whatever drugs he was taking!
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hang on, folks. i need to offer a retraction. we're just getting news that, ... yes, i have to confirm that ben carson was not, in fact, stoned out of his gourd on a slow-burning quaaludes trip. it is now being reported that that is apparently just how ben carson is now, again, that's just ben carson.
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Okay, maybe I need to watch at least part of the debate, if only to see how close Bad Lip Reading Carson is to the real Carson.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I was actually kind of sad for Bush during that debate. I think he's wrong on most things, but his attempts to be the adult in the room were painful to watch when he was clearly baffled by the entire endeavor.
On the other hand, if that's how he deals with an uncomfortable situation...it's one of the few times I've ever seen someone really collapse under pressure in a way that makes me wonder how he'd be in the Sit Room at the White House when The Call comes in. I used to think he was on the list of the least bad options since he was at least someone moderate on paper. But now he's on my No Go List.
I didn't think it was pressure he was collapsing under, it was Trump's trolling that he didn't know how to respond to. I can't imagine knowing how to handle a troll is an important characteristic in the potus, I don't think Putin or the Ayatollah will negotiate by trolling.
His problem to me seems that he's lost between pandering and actually attempting to talk policies. He doesn't know how to pander to the current conservative crowd and when he tries to talk policies he garbles it with pandering and ends up not doing either well.
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But on your first point, Trump is a bully. Bush's way of handling him was to be baffled, point at him and expect everyone else in the room to just agree with Bush that Trump was being crazy, then being exasperated when that didn't happen.
I think these debates, as is, are mostly useless entertainment, but he had plenty of opportunities up there to show at least some leadership, even if it was of a Junior High quality. But he had no idea what to do. That's an important part, good or bad, of being president.
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What I like the most about this situation is that Walker as a candidate had superior general election viability to nearly all of the Republican candidates in the primary, but the actions of people who have pretty much no general election viability have overshadowed and then destroyed him.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: What I like the most about this situation is that Walker as a candidate had superior general election viability to nearly all of the Republican candidates in the primary, but the actions of people who have pretty much no general election viability have overshadowed and then destroyed him.
On paper maybe, but I think almost any professional pol in Wisconsin would have told you he was always a paper tiger not ready for the national stage.
I think most every Wisconsin prediction - that he would wilt under the glare of national lights - proved prophetic. Doesn't mean we've seen the last of him. He could still bone up and return (better than Perry, one hopes), but his downfall was self-inflicted, and I think would have happened whether folks like Trump and Carson were sucking up all the oxygen in the room or not.
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I kind of what to put money on Carly Fiorina being a ticking time bomb. The absurd Planned Parenthood lie is in keeping with character for her. Her major accomplishment was being a terrible CEO and no one will hire her. She's been trying and failing to get into politics for years.
If she gets enough pressure put on her, she'll crack, hard, and her lies will spin out of control.
posted
Time for the anyone-but-Bush parade? Unfortunately for Bush, Trump changes the dynamic so we might not get a repeat of last time.
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I would prefer Mitt Romney far and away from all of these candidates. At least he has actual accomplishments instead of repeated failures *and* confusing viewpoints.
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I'm with you there. I don't like Romney but I would take him over all these clowns any day. And this is coming from someone who in the past almost always voted republican.
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Talking about Romney reminded me of Paul Ryan. I was not a big fan of his in 2012, but, despite that, I think the primary would be very different were he in it.
So I went looking and found this. If the messages in that are actually genuine (and one the biggest problems - second only to the terribleness of his ideas - I had with Ryan was his propensity for lying), it's one of the best things I've seen come from a Republican with core support in a while. What do people think?
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It should be noted that when Ryan says that he thinks the federal government should give money to anti-poverty programs at a local level and then step away, what he really means is that the federal government should give money to churches. There's also a reason he's not fighting poverty in Janesville, despite the fact that it's his district and it's one of the hardest-hit parts of Wisconsin right now. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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It's also easier for bias and racism to show itself and stick at the local level rather then the federal when it comes to benefits.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: What I like the most about this situation is that Walker as a candidate had superior general election viability to nearly all of the Republican candidates in the primary, but the actions of people who have pretty much no general election viability have overshadowed and then destroyed him.
On paper maybe, but I think almost any professional pol in Wisconsin would have told you he was always a paper tiger not ready for the national stage.
Of course he would, and of course he is. I'm not saying he's clearing any particularly high bar. Him being one of the most viable candidates this field is actually in and of itself an absurdity pertaining to this race.
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Fiorina has the advantage of being incredibly polished at a time when polish is far more important than substance. She didn't say anything particularly well at Debate 2, but she said it with enough poise and control that she had the LOOK and FEEL of someone competent. Verisimilitude is apparently all it takes these days to convey legitimacy.
But for that reason, it'll be hard to take her down. Trump has been without substance for going on 3 months now, and Fiorina just got started (her problem being she's attempting substance where Trump isn't), and if she's willing to just lie to everyone and not back down, our system doesn't really have an answer to that sort of politician other than leaving it to the people to decide, which at the moment is a terrible failsafe.
If she hangs on for the three months Trump has been on top, she could get a lot of votes in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Carson, on the other hand...I don't see how he sticks around.
I understand, sort of, why Trump and Fiorina are so popular. I do not at all understand the appeal of Carson.
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Carson is educated, soft spoken, and humble. He doesn't resort to insults or pettiness, and manages to give off an impression of being kind and generous while also being strong and willing to stand his ground. He's also, from what I can tell, a genuine believer who takes his faith very seriously and talks about it openly, and I think a lot of Evangelicals - especially those tired of Trump's egotism and hypocrisy - are flocking to him because of that.
Too bad he's also crazy as a loon.
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
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Carson is there for the same reason Trump is (and, for the same reason, from a different angle, Sanders is): he's not a politician. Voters are really, really tired of career politicians. Especially after the election cycle seems so depressingly repetitive.
Candidate: "I am outraged by the same things you are outraged by!" Voters: "Yes! Go fix those things!" Elected Official: "I can't actually fix those things but I will complain loudly about them!" Voters: "We want someone to fix the things!" Candidate: "I am outraged by the same things you are outraged by and I will fight the do-nothings in Washington to fix them even though I didn't actually do much about them when I was in Washington myself!"
Carson is riding the same no-politicians wave that Trump is on, with the added bonus of being actually intelligent, plus he has the creationist cred to pull in believers that Trump can't get.
Bernie, despite decades in government, is also high on that wave because he's spent those decades consistently fighting the same things people are upset about now, and because Clinton is a politician down to her bone marrow.
Each party has a shallow, candy-coated covering of social opinions (gay marriage, abortion, Sharia law, gun rights) and politicians are used to aiming at those things to get votes, but underneath, both parties are based on money coming in and keeping rich people happy. Voters understand that, to varying degrees, and they're used to trying to winnow out which candidate will be beholden to money AND also incidentally get some good things accomplished.
But here comes candidates who do the unthinkable and talk directly about the money part, and it's so unusual voters actually listen.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Another reason Jeb! and Clinton aren't doing as well as everyone expected, I think: they both so clearly expected to walk in and just take the candidacy. That sense of entitlement, and their ineptness at dealing with the fact that they both have to work for what is so clearly theirs, is palpably obvious and kind of annoying.
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I'm not sure how intelligent I would consider someone to be who considered religion to be probable cause for searches.
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It should be noted, surveillance by religion would probably cover fewer people than the current American rules. As I understand it, the current rules allow surveillance up to three (email + phone) hops away from a terrorism suspect which rough estimates pegs at half of the world's population.
quote:Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson said on Sunday he'd listen to evidence that religion could provide probable cause to search the emails and calls of Syrian refugees in the United States.
Actually, never mind. In the case of the vast majority of Syrian refugees who are not dual-national Americans, there is no cause needed anyway.
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So I hope you guys like your constitutional crisis because that is how you're going to get a constitutional crisis.
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quote:WASHINGTON — Representative Kevin McCarthy of California abruptly withdrew on Thursday from the race to succeed Speaker John A. Boehner, blindsiding his House Republican colleagues and throwing their already tumultuous chamber into deeper chaos with no clear leader in sight just weeks before a series of high-stakes fiscal battles.
As lawmakers ate barbecue and sipped sodas during what was expected to be a pro forma vote to select Mr. McCarthy as their nominee, he did an about-face, saying that he had concluded he could not unite the increasingly fractious Republican majority.
“I am not that guy,” said Mr. McCarthy, with his wife and family by his side, according to members who were in the room. Moments later, Mr. Boehner, who learned of Mr. McCarthy’s decision only minutes before he announced it, declared the vote postponed and the meeting adjourned even though there were two other candidates in the running, underscoring the weakness of the field.
quote:Some Republicans, including Mr. Boehner and Mr. McCarthy, are pressing Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s nominee for vice president in 2012, to step up. Mr. Ryan, however, has repeatedly said he does not want the job, a point he reiterated Thursday even before his colleagues left the meeting.
quote:Mr. McCarthy’s decision leaves the House rudderless just weeks before the Treasury Department faces a debt default that could roil markets, and two months before a deadline for a budget deal to avoid another government shutdown. But it also represents another victory for the clutch of unyielding hard-line conservatives who toppled the ambitions of yet another member of the party leadership.
The turmoil in the House only added to the uncertainty for the Republican Party, which is also dealing with a contentious presidential primary campaign in which obstreperous outsiders continue to ride the Tea Party swell against establishment politicians. While the presidential race has many months to sort itself out, House Republicans have little time to spare to restore order.
After Mr. McCarthy’s announcement, many visibly shaken and nearly speechless Republicans emerged from a large hearing room in the Capitol complex. The acoustics inside were so poor that some had failed to fully take in what had happened: The man with the most votes to become the next speaker had just given up on what was once the most desired job in the House.
“The first reaction was ‘Wow!’ or ‘What did he say?’ ” Representative Jeff Fortenberry, Republican of Nebraska, said. “The next reaction was, ‘Let me sit down and process this while eating lunch at the same time, because this was a shock, a surprise.’ ”
quote:A group of about 40 hard-right House conservatives announced on Wednesday night that they would support Mr. Webster, making it clear that Mr. McCarthy would have had to accede to their demands as he struggled to assemble 218 votes over the next three weeks. (While only Republicans choose their nominee, a majority of the whole House, including Democrats, elects the speaker.)
The Republicans who participated in the revolt were jubilant over the turn of events.
posted
Wow. For a week Boehner got to taste freedom, only to have it yanked away as he is consigned back into hell. It's almost mythic.
I hope he decides to stop placating Tea Partiers who won't like him no matter what he does and just legislates without them. Push the budget without defunding Planned Parenthood and watch it pass almost immediately. Work out a plan to raise the spending ceiling and make it the practically automatic thing it used to be so that particular negotiating nuke is no longer part of the arsenal. Work to pass laws that have strong bipartisan support and input and show how democratic governing is supposed to work.
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He can't. He would risk the moderates getting primaried and letting the crazies have a chance at becoming a plurality.
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Maybe, but he risks the moderates getting defeated outright by Democrats after the GOP brand is so soured by dysfunction that no one can get elected at all.
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Might be a good thing for Ryan. Might be an even better thing for America. The fact that no Republican wants the Speaker seat is a clear sign that the Republicans shouldn't have congress.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Might be a good thing for Ryan. Might be an even better thing for America. The fact that no Republican wants the Speaker seat is a clear sign that the Republicans shouldn't have congress.
Either way, I think Ryan comes out looking good. If we could redraw district lines with an objective party doing it, I think it would astound Americans just how little their government actually reflects our demographics.
Posts: 1194 | Registered: Jun 2010
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There's a major grassroots movement to switch over to a non-partisan legislature in a couple states, modeled after Nebraska's legislature.
There's also a movement in a few states to push for a top-two runoff strategy that mirrors what they have on the West Coast.
And there's an increasingly successful movement to switch over to non-partisan redistricting committees.
All of these will gain more traction in the run up to 2018, when the major pre-2020 Census state elections all start to happen. I think the Dems learned from 2010 that the structural disadvantages they suffered as a result of losing all those state houses will never be overcome by anything other than retaking those legislatures and rebuilding gerrymandered districts. Otherwise they'll never, ever get the House back. I think we'll see the biggest off-season election push from Dems in a generation in 2018.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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You'll notice that all the states with redistricting committees are democratic strongholds. So they are giving up votes that could be gained through gerrymandering (such as is the case in Illinois), and Republican states are obviously not doing this.
So ironically fairness in places like California is allowing gerrymandering to meet with more success in other states.
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