2016 Presidential Election Thread

[wa3zrm]

The Secret Plan To Nominate Mitt Romney From The Convention Floor

With Donald Trumps ruinous domination of the Republican primary polls showing no signs of abating, top leaders in the GOP are reportedly now preparing for the possibility of a contentious brokered convention next year in Cleveland. If that happens, a small group of wealthy donors and die-hard loyalists close to Mitt Romney will be ready with a strategy to win him the nomination from the convention floor.

(Excerpt) Read more at buzzfeed.com ...

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Ben Carson joins Donald Trump in threatening to leave GOP

Washington (CNN)Ben Carson on Friday took a page from Donald Trump's playbook by threatening to depart the Republican Party.
Ahead of Tuesday's GOP presidential debate, the retired neurosurgeon slammed the party after reports emerged that Republican insiders were discussing the possibility of deal-making to decide the eventual nominee at the Republican National Convention.
"If the leaders of the Republican Party want to destroy the party, they should continue to hold meetings like the one described in the Washington Post this morning," Carson said in a statement. "If this was the beginning of a plan to subvert the will of the voters and replace it with the will of the political elite, I assure you Donald Trump will not be the only one leaving the party."

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ..

[wa3zrm]

Trump Won't Blow Up, But He Will Fade Away
Washington Examiner ^ |

Nothing Donald Trump could say or do would drag him down in the polls.
But also, nothing the brash billionaire could say or do can prevent the slide that is coming.
The offensiveness of Trump's comments and quasi-policy proposals are their virtue, politically. His true weakness is that only a sliver of his supporters actually want him to be the Republican nominee.
A close reading of the polls helps show the shallowness of Trump's support. Trump's strongest arena , the national poll , is a nearly meaningless artifact this close to the primaries. In the earliest parts of the primary season, a national poll tells you only who is widely known and liked, not who will win. In the later parts of the primary season a national poll can be a very imperfect proxy for a multi-state poll.
But within two months of Iowa and New Hampshire, the only polls that really matter are the polls of Iowa and New Hampshire. Why? Because the results in Iowa and New Hampshire affect voters in the later states. Many candidates will drop out after each of those states, consolidating support behind other candidates.
On December 10, 2008, Rudy Giuliani led in national polls by 5 points. But he was weak in Iowa. He lost Iowa badly, and then faded to the background.
Hillary Clinton also led the national polls that day, but Obama had eked into the lead in Iowa surveys. Many Democratic voters loved Obama but didn't think a black man could get elected. When Obama won Iowa, that fear vanished. Obama immediately rose in the polls in every state.
So, lesson No. 1 is this: national polls, where Trump's lead is the biggest and the most consistent, are nearly meaningless. Take any December 10 before the presidential primaries in this millennium, and the national polling leader that day has not won Iowa or the nomination in any contested primary.
Here's another telling fact: the more that polls refine for the likelihood of a respondent actually voting, the worse Trump does.
Trump leads Rubio in New Hampshire, 21 percent to 17 percent in a recent Adrian Gray Consulting poll. But when the pollster screened to "Likely NH GOP Voters," the result was a tie,19 percent Rubio to 18 percent Trump. Refining further to "Very Likely NH GOP Voters," Rubio takes a nominal lead within the margin of error, 19 percent to 17 percent.
Iowa's latest poll tells a similar story. Ted Cruz leads Trump in Monmouth's poll, 24 percent to 19 percent. The pollster notes, however, that if they limited the poll to voters who had participated in caucuses in the past, Cruz would lead Trump 25 to 16, nearly doubling his lead.
This pattern suggests how things might shake out in the coming weeks. As pollsters sharpen their likely-voter screens, Trump's numbers will drop.
Trump's numbers will drop still further as voters get more serious about choosing a nominee. A majority of Republicans in both Iowa and New Hampshire are still undecided. Every Trump supporter I spoke to in Iowa immediately named a secondary candidate, Paul, Rubio, or Cruz.
Americans hate Congress, Politicians, Washington, and the Republican Party. Telling a pollster you will vote for Trump may be more of an expression of disdain for the "Establishment" than an actual expression of voter intention.
Put another way: Mad-as-Hell voters have dated Trump, but they're ready to marry Cruz or Rubio.
But here's what will not happen: Trump will not crash and burn because he says some terrible thing. Attacking McCain for being a POW, making misogynist comments against Fox News hosts, mocking reporters for being disabled, and proposing a religious test for immigrants: these comments all help Trump. They help Trump because they evoke freak-outs from liberals and establishment types, which a certain kind of voter loves more than anything.
In today's world of political correctness, everything evokes freakouts. It's sexist to criticize Fed Chair Janet Yellen. It's racist to call Obama skinny. Even defending the freedom of speech is oppression. Some Americans, sick of this idiotic speech policing, have developed a habit of gravitating towards the offensive.
So Trump isn't going to blow himself up. He's simply going to fade away.

[wa3zrm]

Lindsey Graham: Trump Leading Because 40% Of GOP Voters Think Obama Is Kenyan Muslim

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said his presidential opponent Donald Trump is leading in the polls because nearly half of Republican primary voters hate Obama and think he is a Kenyan-born Muslim.

Well there's about 40% of the Republican primary voter who believes that Obama was born in Kenya and is a Muslim, Graham said on Boston Herald Radio on Friday. There's just a dislike for President Obama that is visceral. Its almost irrational.

I could promise you this, hes not gonna win 270 electoral votes, Graham said, citing Trumps inability to grow the vote with the Hispanic community.

I can promise you that Hillary Clinton will clean his clock, he added.

(Excerpt) Read more at buzzfeed.com ...

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[psychicferret]

"Donald Trump: parliamentary petition to ban presidential candidate from Britain becomes most popular ever: as it happened

US Republican presidential candidate announces he is postponing his trip to the Holy Land as a petition calling to ban Trump from UK passes 450,000"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ular-ever.html

[wa3zrm]

Kasich co-chair on Trump: 'You've got to take him out with a head shot'

One of the Illinois co-chairs of Ohio Gov. John Kasich's presidential campaign is brushing off saying that the only way Trump can be beaten is with a "head shot."
The comment, by Pat Brady, a former chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, came in an interview with Illinois's WGN Radio about a week ago after the last Republican presidential debate and was flagged Doug Ibendahl, a known critic of Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration, which Brady supports.
"If you're going to take on Donald Trump, you've got to take him out with a head shot," Brady said during the interview.
Brady, asked about the comment after it was flagged by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, said he didn't mean it literally.

(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...

[wa3zrm]

Donald Trump leads an insane white cult — and Pat Buchanan just explained how it works

GOP front-runner leads cult of personality centered around white alienation, racial resentment and authoritarianism.

Donald Trump is the front-runner in the 2016 Republican presidential primary race. He leads his closest rival, Ted Cruz, by a substantial margin. Trumps proto-fascism, xenophobia and bigotry are not anomalies or outliers. These values are held by a large percentage of Republicans.
Donald Trump validates these feelings. As such, it is now fundamentally clear that Donald Trump is a hero and leader for many conservatives in the Age of Obama.
Most members of the pundit class have been befuddled by the ascendance of Donald Trump. But, there is one person who has solved this riddle.
In a little-discussed editorial written several weeks ago, Pat Buchanan offered the following analysis:
Enter The Donald.
His popularity is traceable to the fact that he rejects the moral authority of the media, breaks their commandments, and mocks their condemnations. His contempt for the norms of Political Correctness is daily on display.....

(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...

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[wa3zrm]

Trump’s decline

Two recent developments have raised questions about billionaire Donald Trump's staying power as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. One is the latest national poll from Quinnipiac indicating that Mr. Trump's commanding lead over his Republican rivals may have slipped. Mr. Trump came in with 28 percent, just four percentage points ahead of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who seems to be enjoying a bit of a political surge at the moment. The survey had Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 12 percent and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 10 percent. Jeb Bush, considered some months back as the likely nominee based on name, family and resume, was favored by only 4 percent of respondents.

The other development was Mr. Trump's crude comments alluding to Hillary Clinton's late return from a bathroom break during the Democratic presidential debate at New Hampshire's Saint Anselm College on Saturday. "I know where she went -- it's disgusting, I don't want to talk about it," said Mr. Trump to a large crowed afterward. "No, it's too disgusting. Don't say it, it's disgusting." He later dismissed her as a loser, saying she had been "schlonged" by Barack Obama in the 2008 contest for the Democratic nomination.

Now we've all seen the coarsening of American society in recent decades, manifest in the popular culture, in the way we treat each other, and, yes, in political discourse. And we all know that Mr. Trump takes the cake in his willingness to employ coarse political language, as when he seemed to make reference to Fox commentator Megyn Kelly's menstrual cycle, dismissed Sen. John McCain's war record because he somehow allowed himself to become a prisoner of war (he was shot down over North Vietnam) and mocked a disabled newspaper reporter.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...

[DanF]

What I find most interesting about the Trump phenomonon is that the polls cannot really be believed.

It seems that verbally expressing true opinions (and/or support) about the rise of "Trump" is the absolute height of public shame for the person being polled or sitting around a coffee shop.

So we will never really know just how well (or badly) The Donald is doing: until the voter enters the secrecy of the ballot box.

Dan

[wa3zrm]

What I find most interesting about the Trump phenomonon is that the polls cannot really be believed.

It seems that verbally expressing true opinions (and/or support) about the rise of "Trump" is the absolute height of public shame for the person being polled or sitting around a coffee shop.

So we will never really know just how well (or badly) The Donald is doing: until the voter enters the secrecy of the ballot box.

Dan

Maybe Trump is buying off all the pollsters?