US General Election 2016

Bluebottle wrote:The "Who get's to carry the atomic football?" question certainly gets a bit scary when the answer is Bush, Palin or Trump.

"Jesus told me to blow up the world."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/bernie-sanders-can-become-president-has-replaced-i-like-him-but-he-cant-win_b_7733476.html

That article should be titled "why Bernie Sanders has an outside chance of winning the Democratic primaries".  Still very much an outside chance, but it's true that he's doing better than anyone (myself included) really expected.  But he is absolutely not electable in a general election and I'm sure Sanders himself knows this.  We all saw how re-fortifying around the ideological base worked for the GOP in the last two election cycles, or Labour in the most recent UK elections.

Where the article really lost me is when they tried to compare Sanders to Obama.  That's just dumb on so many levels that I really lost confidence the writer knew what they were talking about at all.  Obama is a moderate, he had vastly more mainstream support than Sanders did at the same point, he'd been in the national conversation over future candidates since 2004, and he was raising comparable amounts of money as Hillary even in 2007.

I was glad to see that he was polling better but I don't want to get too invested in his candidacy, especially this early. I think a big problem for Bernie is that he came out and described himself as a socialist. One can already imagine the attack ads.

Early primary polling can be weird. Remember how last time, we had moments when Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich were the top polling Republican candidates?

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be wrong about Sanders' viability, but I'm not seeing it.

Ah, yes, "the flavor of the month." I remember it well.

"Oops." - Rick Perry

Like George W. Bush he seems like a nice enough man to have a beer with, you just don't want him in charge of anything.

Yeah, he seemed very personable in that video.

I'm starting to hope Trump makes it to the debates just so we can all witness the crazy and the extremists in the GOP that will be cheering him on in the crowd.

Only "starting" to hope??!

Ugh, politics.

Yup, can't wait for the news articles on the 2020 elections that will pop up the day after the 2016 elections.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/17/fox-news-poll-reshuffling-gop-field-many-agree-with-trump-on-immigration/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2015/07/30/i-just-binge-read-eight-books-by-donald-trump-heres-what-i-learned/

GOP debate this Thursday night. Should be entertaining.

I'd be willing to bet ten dollars that Trump wears that goofy hat to the debate on Thursday.

I thought all the Trump hair jokes had been used up!

I'll admit, if Trump's still in by the time we get to vote, I'll vote for him. But just to keep it interesting. Hopefully he doesn't implode during the debates.

Yep, I don't think his honest to god supporters are 25% among the republican party (though I may be wrong), I think people are just polling their entertainment desires.

This is why I think he has a real chance.  We all know it's a horrid, irresponsible idea to put that clownstick in the White House - it's just too hard to resist.  Scary.

Don't count out the crazification factor.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crazification_factor

Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him.[4] They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% crazification factor in any population.[5]

For those who are unfamiliar with Keyes:

I don't think that conversation demonstrated batshit, head-trauma crazy. Until he got to the incest/abortion section he was proceeding with far more logic than you hear from the religious right. Obama demolished his final argument which indicates all his logic may be faulty, but he was nowhere near Trump level offensiveness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Keyes#2004_Senate_election

After the election, Keyes declined to congratulate Obama, explaining that his refusal to congratulate Obama was "not anything personal", but was meant to make a statement against "extend[ing] false congratulations to the triumph of what we have declared to be across the line" of reasonable propriety. He said that Obama's position on moral issues regarding life and the family had crossed that line. "I'm supposed to make a call that represents the congratulations toward the triumph of that which I believe ultimately stands for ... a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country? I cannot do this. And I will not make a false gesture," Keyes said.[50]

"Crazification factor" has always been associated with humor and hyperbole but I think Keyes demonstrates the level of extreme views and abrasiveness that a certain percentage of the population is willing to go along with.  His pet issues were different than Trump's and he wasn't an egotist in the same way (though he was a political opportunist), but you can see something similar.

I dunno about you but I find the whole gays = incest line of thinking to be pretty offensive.  Whether it's as offensive as Mexicans = rapists is sorta beside the point.  (Note that both Keyes and Trump couched their statements in qualifications; the problem is that drawing the connections they do panders to bigoted tropes, as Obama pointed out in the video.)  He didn't employ the same scattershot insult everyone in reach approach as Trump though.  Keyes was more consistent, even if I think he was totally wrong.

He was clearly trying to use dispassionate logic to prove blindly entrenched beliefs. Though his gays=incest logic was demonstrably faulty, I thought his original marriage logic was pretty solid, if you accept his original premise that biology somehow equates to morality, which I do not.

I would say his coolness in arguing his points make him dangerous rather than crazy. He is at least willing to enter into debate; crazies just agree to debate for the show. Trump will carry the crazies with him; Keyes would actually gain converts.

We finally have our lineup for the first GOP debate!  These are the top ten candidates as determined by Fox (hosts of the first debate) from an average of recent national polls.  Other notable candidates who fall outside the top ten will have their own forum a few hours before the primetime debate.

1. Donald Trump (NY)
   
2. Jeb Bush (FL)
   
3. Scott Walker (WI)
   
4. Mike Huckabee (AR)
   
5. Ben Carson (MD)
   
6. Ted Cruz (TX)
   
7. Marco Rubio (FL)
   
8. Rand Paul (KY)
   
9. Chris Christie (NJ)
   
10. John Kasich (OH)
    

RIP Perry, Frothy Mix, Jindal, Fiorina, Graham, Pataki, et al.

halfwise wrote:He was clearly trying to use dispassionate logic to prove blindly entrenched beliefs.  Though his gays=incest logic was demonstrably faulty, I thought his original marriage logic was pretty solid, if you accept his original premise that biology somehow equates to morality, which I do not.

Marriage has been out so many things other than procreation.  It was a property arrangement first and foremost for centuries.  It's been a method of solidifying alliances.  And it has, since well before the advent of the gay rights movement, been increasingly about love.  The idea that marriage has always been about procreation (or anything else, since it's changed so much) is a fabrication for the sake of the anti-gay argument, and not even a very good one.

I would say his coolness in arguing his points make him dangerous rather than crazy.  He is at least willing to enter into debate; crazies just agree to debate for the show.  Trump will carry the crazies with him; Keyes would actually gain converts.

I agree insofar as Trump's temper gets the better of him on a regular basis, but he has tried to present his positions in the form of reasoned arguments so far.  His success in getting the discussion of immigration and crime in the forefront is testament to that.  It's a dog whistle, yes, and it's inaccurate to imply that the majority of immigrants are contributing to the problem of crime.  But the recent controversy over San Francisco's safe haven policy is testament to the (small) element of reality in Trump's arguments, which is why they get more attention than pure rambling.  Both Keyes and Trump walk the line between totally batshit and extreme but reasonable if you agree with their initial assumptions, and spend time on both sides of said line.

Eldorion wrote:We finally have our lineup for the first GOP debate!  These are the top ten candidates as determined by Fox (hosts of the first debate) from an average of recent national polls.  Other notable candidates who fall outside the top ten will have their own forum a few hours before the primetime debate.

1. Donald Trump (NY)
   
2. Jeb Bush (FL)
   
3. Scott Walker (WI)
   
4. Mike Huckabee (AR)
   
5. Ben Carson (MD)
   
6. Ted Cruz (TX)
   
7. Marco Rubio (FL)
   
8. Rand Paul (KY)
   
9. Chris Christie (NJ)
   
10. John Kasich (OH)
    

RIP Perry, Frothy Mix, Jindal, Fiorina, Graham, Pataki, et al.

I like that most of the entertaining ones have been retained. For the ideal line up I would have traded Kasich for Graham.