2016 US Presidential Elections | Trump Wins

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senorgregster said:
Good description. I was confused at first but see what you are saying now. I suppose I'm troubled beyond the current situation though. If you have a popular vote select one candidate and these supers decide it is the wrong choice what message does that send?
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To be frank with you, I actually don't believe supers help at all. They were created after the clusterfeck of McGovern 49 states loss and Carter's weak presidency (a donkey would have won in 76, Watergate guaranteed that), but after that, it's Mondale, Dukakkis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama and Clinton (imminent). A 2-4 score is nothing to write about. And they invite a lot of easily avoidable criticism into the process. However, as the GOP's clusterfeck this cycle proved, having them in place means that you can check the rise of a demagogue, so there's that. The question is whether you keep them in place for such emergency, rare as it is, or do away with them and hope the voters make the right choice. There's no easy answer. I think one possible way to alleviate the problem is making some renowned activists of progressive groups into supers, to make them more representative, instead of the current model of elected party officials only.

Edit: Sam Bee made the explanation quite colorful, and correct.



@berbatrick I spend half my time here nowadays defending her and I hardly even like her. What I wondered about is the palpable, vociferous hate towards the woman
 
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Looks like it really is gonna be Trump or Cruz.

Trump or Cruz.
 
You do wonder how Lindsey Graham is coping with things.
 
Raoul said:
Party platforms are influenced by who wins the election, but in this case I can't see the Dems adopting Bernie's free shit for all ideas because a lot of Dem congressional candidates would be in trouble against GOP challengers. The Republicans would invest a lot of time to run agaisnt Sanders' policies after the humiliation of having lost the WH to a socialist.
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But who knows, the popularity of Trump is showing that maybe there´s a crack in right wing America´s adoption of the policies of bought politicians and their massive give away of "free shit" for corporate welfare, tax loopholery, the inauditable Pentagon, the military industrial complex, filling the prison system to full potential and all the other right wing gift giving obsessions from the American tax payer.

Trump´s base, as ugly as it may be, do not seem to be the recipients of the typical extremely generous Republican free stuff cookie jar and they are certainly making their loud voice heard. Not that I expect much of a change but maybe these new voices of Republicans might be more open to supporting more government spending investments in education and infrastructure and other programs that support working and middle class, things they may actually benefit from economically.

You and others seem to deem Trump as "liberal" in many of his economic ideas so it does show some kind of hope for Republican free stuff largesse to be pointed in a different direction, or acceptance of some of Sanders ideas.

There´s always hope.
 
berbatrick said:
Kasich is indeed the best candidate (though on avg he's now behind Bernie nationally), this is one poll, and the Sanders > Clinton trend is holding...

Edit: Pennsylvania and Ohio are alarming too.
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It's Connecticut.
 
Same poll:
. In contrast, both Trump and Cruz would lose to either Democrat. Clinton outpolls Trump 48% to 40% and Cruz 52% to 31%. Sanders beats Trump 49% to 40% and wins over Cruz 55% to 30%.
 
berbatrick said:
Same poll:
. In contrast, both Trump and Cruz would lose to either Democrat. Clinton outpolls Trump 48% to 40% and Cruz 52% to 31%. Sanders beats Trump 49% to 40% and wins over Cruz 55% to 30%.
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Exactly. Kasich gets a huge unrealistic boost based on being seen as the nicer, friendlier, not-so-heavy-on-your-conscience candidate compared to the other two. And there's not a chance after a general election campaign that he wins Connecticut, let alone by 8 to 11 points. Once his past positions, achievements and actions actually get scrutinised for once, rather than just having the qualification of "not being insane".
 
All polls surprisingly similar on both sides in NY. Usually you'd get one or two outliers. Lack of action or herding going on?

That Monmouth poll the other day was weird too. They are highly rated by 538 but very small sample size (300+) and large margin of errors (+/- 5.6) seems fishy.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
All polls surprisingly similar on both sides in NY. Usually you'd get one or two outliers. Lack of action or herding going on?

That Monmouth poll the other day was weird too. They are highly rated by 538 but very small sample size (300+) and large margin of errors (+/- 5.6) seems fishy.
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Monmouth have been pretty good so far in fairness, the small sample size seems to be standard for them. I also think the nature of the closed primary in New York, (you had to register by last October in order to be able to vote in it), means you probably get less variation in the likely voter pool. Though that to me also makes Bernie's numbers there look all the more impressive. If he keeps it under 15%, ignoring the implications that has for his actual campaign, it would be a pretty excellent result. Lower than she managed against Obama.
 
He underperforms polls in closed states, overperforms in open states. Obviously they haven't got the sampling down exactly yet.
 
berbatrick said:
He underperforms polls in closed states, overperforms in open states. Obviously they haven't got the sampling down exactly yet.
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I think that may be negated somewhat by the length of time since the deadline, less uncertainty regarding late registrations.
 
Ubik said:
Exactly. Kasich gets a huge unrealistic boost based on being seen as the nicer, friendlier, not-so-heavy-on-your-conscience candidate compared to the other two. And there's not a chance after a general election campaign that he wins Connecticut, let alone by 8 to 11 points. Once his past positions, achievements and actions actually get scrutinised for once, rather than just having the qualification of "not being insane".
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Kasich don't have high negatives which would increase his odds of performing well in a Gen. Even if the Dems manufacture a negative narrative about him, he's just not a particularly unlikeable person like Cruz and Trump are, and as such, would be a bit teflon against the attacks. This would also explain why he has nearly consistently done better in the head to heads.
 
Raoul said:
Kasich don't have high negatives which would increase his odds of performing well in a Gen. Even if the Dems manufacture a negative narrative about him, he's just not a particularly unlikeable person like Cruz and Trump are, and as such, would be a bit teflon against the attacks. This would also explain why he has nearly consistently done better in the head to heads.
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His negatives would rise, just like Sanders' would. The stuff on his abortion record alone would damage him pretty severely.

If you're just arguing that he'd be a better candidate than Trump and Cruz, then yeah, undoubtedly.
 
Ubik said:
His negatives would rise, just like Sanders' would. The stuff on his abortion record alone would damage him pretty severely.

If you're just arguing that he'd be a better candidate than Trump and Cruz, then yeah, undoubtedly.
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They wouldn't rise enough to villainize him though. He is fundamentally a likeable guy which is very difficult to demagogue through commercials. They could hit him on issues, but that rarely does the trick unlike traditional negative ads that invent bad things about candidates to make them unlikeable.
 
But I can´t see Kasich exciting the Republicans the way Trump or Cruz apparently have. That´s why he´s far behind in the third. A bit laughable thinking he could be the best candidate. The douche factor of the excitable Republican base is not going to get out in masse for this frumpy, folksy northerner. When have Republicans ever chosen a third place candidate? When has anyone? This is ridiculous.

Doesn´t even Rubio have more delegates than Kashich?
 
Nobby style said:
But I can´t see Kasich exciting the Republicans the way Trump or Cruz apparently have. That´s why he´s far behind in the third. A bit laughable thinking he could be the best candidate. The douche factor of the excitable Republican base is not going to get out in masse for this frumpy, folksy northerner. When have Republicans ever chosen a third place candidate? When has anyone? This is ridiculous.

Doesn´t even Rubio have more delegates than Kashich?
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Best candidate for a general election out of the three of them. This is still not a particularly ringing endorsement. He's not a good candidate for the modern GOP primary.
 
Ubik said:
Best candidate for a general election out of the three of them. This is still not a particularly ringing endorsement. He's not a good candidate for the modern GOP primary.
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Still just opinions. We will never know cause he´s in 4th place in the primaries. It just seems about as useful as saying Mittens would be the best out of the 4.
 
Nobby style said:
Still just opinions. We will never know cause he´s in 4th place in the primaries. It just seems about as useful as saying Mittens would be the best out of the 4.
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Well yeah but we've had the debate about Bernie enough and we'll never know that, either. Certainly wouldn't call it "laughable".
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
I was joking. Technically it's true though.

Kasich isn't a strong G.E candidate. War hero McCain and dashing successful business family man Romney came short, he isn't better than either of them.
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There's the whole alternance thing though. Would be hard for anyone to win as a Republican right after GWB. I think Republicans would have the upper hand to start in this election, after 8 years of a Democrat, and would keep it as long as they didn't put forward a maniac as candidate (which they will).
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
I was joking. Technically it's true though.

Kasich isn't a strong G.E candidate. War hero McCain and dashing successful business family man Romney came short, he isn't better than either of them.
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Agreed. Kasich is a terrible candidate. If you can´t even come close to Cruz and Trump, you are totally wasting our time. He just doesn´t get it, does he?
 
Nobby style said:
Bernie still has a fighting chance and has won a load of primaries. Again, Kashich is in 4th place, even behind a retired candidate. Just don´t see how such an unwanted candidate can be best
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There's a fairly decent chance of a contested convention, so his chances are probably stronger than Bernie's at the moment (though still vanishingly small). I think Trump and Cruz are heavily toxic to middle ground voters (even with the GOP itself), so I'd say it's not hard for Kasich to be a better bet in a general. Majority of the Cruz and Trump backing base would fall in line against Clinton in the end, as they did with Romney.
 
MarceloFalcon said:
There's the whole alternance thing though. Would be hard for anyone to win as a Republican right after GWB. I think Republicans would have the upper hand to start in this election, after 8 years of a Democrat, and would keep it as long as they didn't put forward a maniac as candidate (which they will).
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I think their general problem nowadays is that the rabid far right faction of their party makes every and any nominee bruised and weakened after the primary process. McCain had to run Palin to energize that base and Romney's stance towards welfare and immigration killed him. As long as the Dems don't nominate someone too far outside of the mainstream, they'd have the upper hand with changing social norms and demographics. The GOP boxed themselves in with that Southern strategy and are spending time and money defending that base+ contesting the Rust Belt, not much else.
 
Kasich is still in it because he has a viable chance of being the nominee if the first two rounds of voting don't give it to Trump or Cruz, at which point all delegates will be unbound and he will be only remaining person with high polling numbers against the Dem.
 
Ubik said:
There's a fairly decent chance of a contested convention, so his chances are probably stronger than Bernie's at the moment (though still vanishingly small). I think Trump and Cruz are heavily toxic to middle ground voters (even with the GOP itself), so I'd say it's not hard for Kasich to be a better bet in a general. Majority of the Cruz and Trump backing base would fall in line against Clinton in the end, as they did with Romney.
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You lost me when you´re saying 4th place Kasich´s chances are better than Bernie´s. I´ll go out on a limb and say this fantasy of a contested primary choosing anyone either than Trump or Cruz is just so much hooey. That would be certain suicide for the Republican party. The Cruz and especially Trump people would go apeshit. Too many political pundits spewing bollocks.
 
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