Rachel Maddow is just shocked at how Fox News has unilaterally chosen who will be in and out of the first debate-which will effectively doom the candidacy of many GOPers. She thinks this compromises the democratic process-which it clearly does.
But it's their primary not mine and if they want to screw it up who am I to stop them? I can't wait till Thursday night. And let's be clear, Donald Trump is the dominant reason for that. Trump is a dominant candidate in general.
He is not a fringe candidate, not within the Republican party at least.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-04/donald-trump-dominates-republican-field-in-pre-debate-bloomberg-poll
"Donald Trump’s rise to a position of total dominance in the Republican presidential field has been accompanied by a dismissive snort from Beltway mandarins that Trump is merely a “fringe” candidate. The idea, in essence, is that Trump has a strong but narrow appeal to a group of mouth-breathing xenophobes and practically nobody else."
"But a new Bloomberg Politics poll of Republican and Republican-leaning voters demolishes this claim. Trump not only laps the competition—he has twice the support of the second-place candidate, Jeb Bush (21 percent to 10 percent)—but he also leads among every demographic subgroup, but one (self-identified “moderates”)."
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-04/it-s-wrong-to-call-trump-a-fringe-candidate
Even though he doesn't lead among moderates, he's only 1% back (20-19).
"But a new Bloomberg Politics poll of Republican and Republican-leaning voters demolishes this claim. Trump not only laps the competition—he has twice the support of the second-place candidate, Jeb Bush (21 percent to 10 percent)—but he also leads among every demographic subgroup, but one (self-identified “moderates”)."
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-04/it-s-wrong-to-call-trump-a-fringe-candidate
Even though he doesn't lead among moderates, he's only 1% back (20-19).
It goes without saying if the GOP wants to vote for Trump-and everything suggests they do-they should do it.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/music-to-trump-democrats-ears.html
Yet Rachel seems to almost want to save the GOPers from themselves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/us/politics/election-2016-republican-debate.html?rref=homepage&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Home%20Page&pgtype=Blogs
Speaking of the debate setup-the lucky ten are chosen and Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Lindsay Graham won't be there.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/us/politics/election-2016-republican-debate.html?rref=homepage&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Home%20Page&pgtype=Blogs
My only regret is that Chris Christie will be. My wish is that he insults Trump in some way-in a desperate bid to throw a Hail Mary for his floundering campaign and Trump rips into him over Bridgegate and other assorted scandals. I agree with the people of NJ: he makes me sick too.
http://politickernj.com/2015/08/labor-plane-circles-christie-fundraiser-chris-christie-makes-us-sick/
http://politickernj.com/2015/08/labor-plane-circles-christie-fundraiser-chris-christie-makes-us-sick/
Ok, so it's not a fair process. But then again, the GOP is not a fair party and not about fair policies. Why would I try to give an unfair party with unfair policies a fair process against this party's will? It's their party and they can mess it up as much as they want to.
P.S. Trump really does have some great lines about Lindsay Graham. No Mr. More Zero Than Hero Graham will not be there. As Trump says, why should he listen to a guy running at 0%?
And why should Democrats try to save the Not So Grand Party from itself?
Why should people in general want to save the GOP from itself? Well, in my case I would really rather have two viable candidates running against each other. I don't want to have to worry (in a fundamental way) about one party's candidate. I say that, yet I have a difficult time with all of the GOP candidates (that I'm aware of anyway). And I think I know the reason: I have a difficult time with the GOP base who pushes them to be the candidates they are. That's what really sucks.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I have no problem with Trump inflicting maximal damage on the GOP if the GOP base is going to be like they are. Still though, I'm hoping they come to their senses eventually, and here's why I think they might:
I'd head a radio interview with some people testing how people respond to polls under different circumstances. They asked partisans factual questions and then they repeated the experiment with a different set of partisans, but the 2nd time around they told them they'd win a cash prize for each correct answer. The same sorts of people responded very differently in the two cases. When a cash prize was on the line, they actually gave sane answers, despite being committed partisans (the implication being, what they actually believed shone through). The 1st time around (w/o the prize money) they didn't care how crazy they sounded: as if they were using the opportunity to express their political allegiance.
And example of the kind of question I'm talking about is asking committed Republicans if Obama is a US citizen.
Yes, that's Sumner's framing effects. There have been polls like this for years. Yet nothing ever changes in the GOP-instead it gets worse.
DeleteI doubt we're going to have two viable candidates any time soon going by the recent history of the GOP.
It's not just going to suddenly happen overnight.