US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3170

On March 05 2016 01:13 LegalLord wrote:
So is a brokered convention really a better option for the Republicans than nominating Trump? Seems like that would also be a disaster.

On March 05 2016 00:54 oneofthem wrote:
trump's loosening of his immigration stance may hurt him

On March 05 2016 00:20 Doodsmack wrote:
Please God, let Trump lose in November.

And lol @ xDaunt's claim that some people don't have a "working" understanding of the Trump phenomenon. Because it's so complicated.

On March 05 2016 02:04 xDaunt wrote:

How emotionally devastated are you that your boy Webb prefers Trump to Hillary?

On March 04 2016 17:33 JW_DTLA wrote:


The fractured Democrats approve of the sitting Democratic president by an average of 86.7 versus 9.9 for a +76.8 spread. Show me the fracturing. Show it in numbers.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval_among_democrats-1046.html

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/2016-presidential-debates-democrats-barack-obama-213540

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/12/presidential-job-approval-ratings-from-ike-to-obama/

On March 05 2016 02:04 SolaR- wrote:


Oh it's you again. The guy who provides no substance but pretends hes intelligent with his hyperbolic behavior.

Get him out of here. Get out. Out out out.

On March 05 2016 02:10 strongwind wrote:

No one said anything about Democrats disliking Obama. If you hadn't noticed, this election cycle is different than Obama's. Democrats have been presented a real choice with Sanders and Clinton, one that shows a more polarizing picture of where this party should go. There is a growing amount of discontent with the status quo even among Democrats. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you think Clinton and Obama are the same person, you are sorely mistaken.

On March 05 2016 02:23 kwizach wrote:

Your original claim was that the Democrats were "just as fractured" as the Republicans. That is factually false. If you take a look at any poll of Democrats about the current candidates, they aren't even close to the polarization and dissatisfaction regarding other candidates than their preferred choice that characterize Republican voters. This article analyzes the numbers, and the latest polls show 79 percent of Democrats this year have said they’d be satisfied with Hillary as nominee - a higher number than for both Obama and Clinton at this point in 2008. That is much higher than the numbers for Trump, Rubio and Cruz among Republican voters. The Democrats are simply not as fractured as the Republicans currently are.

On March 05 2016 03:47 strongwind wrote:

Maybe "just as fractured" is the wrong way to state it, because the race on both sides is so different. The problem with analyzing favorability numbers is that the Dems have different problems when it comes to the general. Check out the top 4 winners on that list; none of them ended up winning the election. Sure, Dems can find one candidate favorable, but if they don't turn out to vote, it really doesn't matter.

This article points to the underlying issue with the Dems. Obviously if Trump is the nominee, all bets are off as to what will happen come Nov. 8th. I'm just saying Hillary's crowning is not so sure a thing as some might believe.

“It is pretty much universally the case that the party out of power sees higher turnout during its nominating contests, but that is not determinative of general election success,” said Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton. “In the last three election cycles in which Democrats controlled the White House, Republicans had higher turnout during the primaries, but Democrats went on to win the popular vote.”

This was the first GOP debate where I saw them make Donald Trump bleed. I really don't know whether he 'won' or 'lost'. I suspect his support is too ingrained at this point to be easily shaken. But this time Rubio and Cruz and mainly the moderators knocked Trump off his stride.

It's not a matter of catching him in some logical contradiction or baloney answer. That's happened a hundred times and it's irrelevant. The issue is that his opponents are sharpening a number of attack lines that are commonsensical, direct and understandable: the scam of Trump University, importing foreign labor for the 'short season' at Mar-a-Lago. It's hard for him to smack people down on these attacks with a single broadside.

In part it's because these attacks are simple and understandable enough that he can't bank on people not knowing the details of the question or why the underlying substance might be important. People are also used to Trump's style by now. They're not silenced by the first rhetorical wallop. More than anything though, everybody on the stage tonight, including the moderators, but with partial exception of John Kasich, was openly and unabashedly out to get Trump.

That's hard to fight.

In the earlier debates the "little Marco" or "liar" Cruz jabs were bracing, so out of bounds of political debate that people couldn't adequately respond to them. But now we're at the stage that, say, Jeb got to toward the end of his campaign. He'd learned to expect Trump's attacks, not be totally rattled by them and fight back. In this debate, though I don't have the transcript in front of me, I feel like there were several times where Trump was reduced to or ended up just repeating "little Marco" over and over as Rubio spoke, just to drown him out or bludgeon him. That comes off less as dominating than a bit embattled, frustrated. It's not a smackdown but a full on brawl.

Having said all this though, I come back to something I wrote after one of the earlier debates. Once Trump pulls you down to his level, even when you fight back, you're still down at his level. And he's better at this than you are.

On March 05 2016 04:09 oBlade wrote:

That's an interesting article. It contains an analytical mistake:


What this guy is saying that in 2012, 2000, and 1996, Republican primary turnout was higher than Democratic primary turnout, but the Democrats won the popular vote in the general election. Unfortunately, if we remember, the Democrats didn't actually win the 2000 election, as the popular vote isn't how the election is decided. So it's not a meaningful point.

The more appropriate way to look at this is that the USA is building a streak of not electing the same party after a 2-term president.